A World Without Concepts
This is a strange land.
The sky is always gray, like an unopened canvas. The people here are born without the concept of a “window.” Their minds are sealed stone chambers, walls thick and heavy; no matter how the wind howls or the rain lashes outside, it all collides into a muffled thud, never seeping through.
Deep in the temple halls, a blade rests against someone’s neck, its edge icy, danger pressing close. Yet their gaze is like that of a hollow statue—without fear, without doubt, without even the capacity to understand what “danger” means.
In the old palace of this world, eunuchs still pace about. Amid the toll of bells and drums lingers only the stale air of bygone years, like a sandalwood box locking away every trace of renewal. On the streets, queues sway in the dust; rickshaws and long gowns pass each other, yet the braids hang like iron hooks, fastening their spirits so tightly that no step forward is possible.
When someone lights an electric bulb, the room brightens as if it were day. But the crowd scatters in panic—they have never possessed the notion that “light can be brighter than fire,” and so they take this glow for a demonic flame, something to be fled from.
On this land, every new thing is erased by language into a phantom. Not rejected—simply without any entry point at all.
Thus, a blade may cut through flesh, yet it cannot cut through the invisible wall.
This is the “world without concepts.”