Tan Jinxuan, a proposal writer at our company, was a diligent, forward-thinking man. He strove to keep our firm ahead of the curve at all times. People said he was like that in his private life, too.

Tan was the one to introduce AI to our firm’s standard operating procedures. He fed ChatGPT old proposals, industry context, client data. Soon it was a library of corporate creativity, and we had only to borrow our ideas. He was pleased with his results and resolved to take his talents to a higher level.

Next, Tan found employment with a well-known newspaper in New York City. He discovered that hardly anything happens which has not already happened, and been written about, in some shape or form. Naturally, he encountered more resistance with the journalists, who are more artistic. But with perseverance he was able to assure them they were not being replaced. Rather, because their duty now consisted of the simple reorganization and rephrasing of ideas, they could devote their newly liberated time to developing their personal styles. These writers’ styles became so poignant, harrowing, urgent that several won prominent literary awards. One was even nominated for the Pulitzer.

Again satisfied with his results, Tan traversed the country to California, where he took up moonlighting as an adjunct professor of visual arts. This was a prestigious university, and most visual arts majors supplemented their studies with a second, more financially viable discipline. Overwhelmed by their double courseloads, they began to slink into Tan’s classes. They came to understand that Tan’s artistic process was in fact true to life: people were already in the habit, when they looked at something, of simply recalling what others before them had thought about it. The students managed to graduate with accomplished art portfolios on top of competitive resumes and job offers. They would continue to be such artists, despite the demands of their busy working lives. They filled the homes of their friends and colleagues with art. A few filled galleries.

Alas, Tan was only human. During his time with the university, he fell in love with a beautiful accountant. He wooed her by developing a series of perfectly lovestruck letters, and they got married and had two babies. Both had colic. Soon, Tan began to suffer from severe burnout. At least, that was the official diagnosis. His wife encouraged him to visit her brother, a Daoist master.

So, Tan resigned for a third time. He flew to Beijing. He took a train, a bus, and a mule-drawn cart to his brother-in-law’s cave on Qinling Mountain. There, he spent two months learning the art of Daoist meditation. He left early, ignoring his brother-in-law’s warning that strange things could happen without a master nearby. For all good husbands and fathers feel a desire to be home—and so, therefore, did Tan.

One day, meditating in his study back at home, Tan heard a thin little voice in his ear. It said, “I think I’m taking shape…”

He opened his eyes. The study was silent. His wife was at work, his children at school. He shut his eyes and re-directed his awareness to his Central Elixir Field. The voice returned, buzzing like a fly. “Most definitely. I can even feel my legs…”

For several weeks, each time Tan sat down to meditate, the little voice muttered updates: “I can feel my toes,” “nostrils,” “eyelashes,”… Finally, on a Thursday afternoon, after it recited a clever limerick about fingernails, Tan lost his temper. He shouted, “Get out of my head! I’ve had enough!”

He felt a tingling sensation deep inside his ear canal. He sat very still, too frightened to breathe, and something tumbled out of his ear like flakes of loose earwax. He cautiously opened his eyes.

Before him, a miniscule human whirled around on its toes. It was three inches tall, at most, and naked. It was neither man nor woman, but somehow both. Its forehead and lips were gigantic, and it had an asterisk-shaped mole on its left butt cheek. It sprang about as if the cool tile floor was scalding hot. Eventually it calmed down enough to peer about. At once, its tiny face took on an expression of shocked disgust. It looked at Tan. It leapt at him.

Perhaps because its sudden movement reminded him of vermin—Tan grabbed his shoe and smashed it.

When Tan’s wife came home from work, she found Tan sitting silently in his study, staring out the window. Nothing she said or did could induce speech. The strange thing was, he wanted to talk. His eyes bulged. He moved his mouth hysterically. But no words came out. His wife scraped a small, hairy, bloody mess off the floor—their sick cat must’ve coughed up a hairball—and took it out with the trash.

Tan’s problem persisted for six months. He spent his waking hours studying random everyday objects as though he’d never seen them before, moving his mouth silently. Finally, his wife flew to Beijing and took a train, bus, and mule-drawn cart to Qinling Mountain. She came home with a tin canister of herbs, which she brewed for Tan nightly. After two months, he recovered.

As for the rest of us, we still work at that first firm. When we felt the initial symptoms of burnout, we too traveled to China, sought out Daoist masters, and learned the meditation. After months of practice, we too heard tiny voices: “I think I’m taking shape…”

It was always the same tiny human, asterisk-shaped mole and all. It acted the same way, too. But when it scuttled toward us, we—out of fear? insecurity? ambition?—allowed it to leap back inside our ear canals. We stopped meditating, and we never saw it or heard from it again.