With echoes of Franz Kafka and Han Kang, Hiroko Oyamada distills the deep discomfort of a world in which corporations are increasingly exerting control over our lives unnoticed. The factory is an almost unmanageably large industrial site in a nameless Japanese city. The employees dedicate themselves to the tasks assigned to them, they do not know the higher purpose. Three young people find work here: a woman who operates a paper shredder, a man who proofreads unspecified documents, a third who studies the moss that grows on the extensive grounds.