Decay - Page 8

Long after the Aurora Bar gathering, I found myself in my dim studio, reflecting on the harsh path that brought me here. My heartbreak for Elena and my disgust at Igor’s trajectory condensed into one overarching condemnation of modern life. Each day, I typed away in half-lit solitude, composing a final testament that braided my personal tragedies with the monstrous shape of a capitalist system that devours authenticity.

At first, I believed these writings could be a second dissertation—a clarion call to awaken the sleepwalkers. But, eventually, I realized that I was merely memorializing my conclusion that there was no redemption left for humanity. In the end, the corporate apparatus consumed all: love, in my case destroyed by disease but also overshadowed by the world’s indifference; friendship, in Igor’s case perverted by greed masquerading as ambition. If Elena’s hope had once been the slender thread tethering me to compassion, then her death severed it for good.

Thus, I gather my experiences here, not as a confession but as a post-mortem on the illusions so many cling to. My father taught me resignation; my mother taught me to hope in literature’s power; Igor taught me that ambition scaffolds itself on exploitation; Elena taught me that compassion could survive even in a barren field—until fate decided otherwise. Each piece of that puzzle led me to conclude that, yes, the world is precisely the monstrous organism I dreaded it to be. My condemnation is thorough, all-consuming.

I exist now in near-complete withdrawal from the social sphere, eking out a minimal life among the city’s neon illusions. I see office workers trotting to drab cubicles, families pinning hopes on marketing slogans, and acquaintances forging fleeting alliances on social media. Nothing in their bright mania moves me—even those acts of kindness Elena prized seem dwarfed by a system that grinds them into commodities the moment they surface. To me, nothing is left but to watch from afar as the machinery churns onward.

Igor is at the apex now, presumably orchestrating new expansions, analyzing data to refine how best to stir the public’s ephemeral desires. I wonder if, somewhere, he feels a pang for the library benches where our camaraderie began. But he has chosen his path, and I—broken by Elena’s loss, alienated from the city’s illusions—have chosen mine. That gulf cannot be bridged.

Some nights, I dream of the old factory skyline in my hometown, the smog drifting across a dying sun. In the dream, Elena walks beside me, pointing to a meaning nestled in the gloom, a tiny ember of empathy still flickering. I wake, torn between longing and fury, because that ember is precisely what the corporate apparatus devours. Meanwhile, Igor sits far above, turning the gears of a digital empire pledged to the science of manipulation.

I offer these words as a final record, an autopsy of my own optimism. If they serve any purpose, it is to warn that once the illusions are recognized, one can never rejoin the pageantry without feeling complicit. Love, the only force that might have saved me, has vanished with Elena’s last breath. My final friend has metamorphosed into a polished functionary of the very powers we once defied. And so I conclude:

Humanity has proven unworthy of the sacrifices, the tears, the fleeting illusions that fueled it. When an entire civilization is choreographed by predatory appetites, perhaps the sole rational response is disengagement. Let the city’s lights shine, let them tower into the midnight sky. Let them persuade the unsuspecting that tomorrow will bring unstoppable progress. I have no stake in those illusions anymore. In the hush of my tiny studio, I write these pages and prepare to vanish from the stage. The monstrous organism that calls itself human society will continue to feast on illusions and devour authenticity. Yet at least one voice—mine—has testified to its underlying disease.

And so I end in silence. Let them claim triumph. Let them rename exploitation as salvation. I, for one, will not watch further. I refuse to be the captive audience for a civilization cannibalizing what remains of decency. Elena is gone, her last vestiges of hope turned to dust. Igor is enthroned, or perhaps entombed, in a fortress of illusions. My own heart is as calloused as the city sidewalks. I gave it all the rigorous scrutiny of a scholar who lost his faith in the very possibility of redemption.

I close this chronicle in the only honest manner: Humanity, in its infinite cunning, has left me no reason to bear witness any longer. If there remains a shred of moral sense hidden in the crowd’s trifling gestures, it is overshadowed by market calculus and the cult of personal gain. What this malignant organism truly deserves is the echo of its own voice: a hollow ring, reverberating in the empty corridors of skyscrapers and factories, until the entire edifice collapses under its own weight.

Draw the curtain. Extinguish the lights. That is my verdict, and it brings me a certain grim peace.

—Victor Mercer