Even the cats who have been wandering the streets for many years are aware of the unusualness of the city at this moment. On the evening of March 31, 2022, the lights on both sides of the Bund were bright, but the viewing platform in Puxi was as empty as the stage after the end of the big play. With the experience of city life, the cat may realize that what will follow is an extraordinary and difficult time.
At this time, people who are wandering outside, there is always a reason to have to do so. But it is nothing more than rushing to maintain the social relations that are most important at this moment before the midnight bell rings and returns to the world of self-talk.
On this night, young couples strolled around the shining empty city, with the mood of watching the fireworks together. The young boys and girls quarreled and held hands, as if to do a ritual to strengthen their memories. They knew that they would go back to their respective homes or schools and not know when they would see each other next time.
The mother also took the child out and let the children run happily on the long Nanjing Road, sinking into the fresh air of spring. In the next few days, it will be difficult to get out, as if this is the last spring. No matter what the city becomes, the two will accompany and support each other next.
And those men or women who walk alone, looking at this familiar and unfamiliar city as they walk, instead of being alone in the hustle and bustle, it is better to keep the purer experience of the present to themselves. These days, I don't know how many couples look at each other, but for a cucumber or a bowl wash, the noise next door is well known.
On this night, some people also came to their offices and brought covers and a change of clothes. For compliance reasons, according to the requirements of sealing and control, practitioners in some industries can only live in offices. After a few days, the snoring person is placed in the same conference room. Colleagues become roommates, and psychological distances are both close and far. Compared with the still city life and the stomach meal that is being digested, trance feels that the money number game in the hand is really like a void and a wind catcher.
Even if the noisy streets are about to stand still, there are still people who, as in the past, silently clean and guard, toil and fill themselves. Like the cats that roam the streets, they need gaps in the city to sleep and eat. Under the closed loop of responsibility, such gaps are smoothed out. They need to be extremely lucky to be able to put on protective clothing, sleep in tents, and do things like carrying and delivery, so that they don't have to be helped or helped.
As the bell finally rings, people enter a separate world. They soon discovered that even if they were left alone, things were often involuntary. It's still a city. To meet basic living needs, it is necessary to form some basic cooperative relationships. For example, group buying, you must become a member of the group in order to catch the consumption car. The daily rights of independent consumers have faded, and they can only follow what everyone has to eat, and the head of the group is also facing a crisis of trust. In the shortage market, merchants also immediately changed their forms, docking the group leader one by one and turning it around as soon as possible.
This is a change in the logic of the operation of the city part. Maybe it's only temporary, but it eventually flips the uncertain side. Means re-estimating the value. This makes people realize that many of the achievements and glories of the past were originally thought to have been achieved by their own efforts, but in retrospect, it is only the feedback given by the city system, that is, the floating cloud-like things. What is it that can be retained and owned for a long time? What seemed to be full and busy before will be worthless in the future.
But this is just a useless flash. What needs to be dealt with now is meals, activities and sleep, self-help as much as possible, and a lesson in family emergency management.
Looking around, in this state of stillness, eating is undoubtedly the most important, the fundamentals and bottom line of survival; and seeking medical treatment and prescribing medicine is the most difficult to do, because it is personalized and scarce, and it is also the most advantageous place in the big city. Perhaps, the great waves of life will come one by one, and to prepare for this is to keep yourself healthy and avoid falling into the most difficult situation. Now that the scale effect of the city has been sucked out, only it is up to itself. At the most critical juncture, everyone has a reason to run hard, just to survive, just to save.
"When a naked child is lonely, he will create a world."
And the city's imagination of a better life has always stood on the streets where it was made.