The Decaying Dream of America: I Assemble Corpses and Confront Madness

Leaving the hustle and bustle of the construction site, the world seemed to have been emptied of sound, leaving only the soles of shoes rubbing against gravel and the occasional muffled thuds from afar, the source of which was indistinguishable.

The streetlights were sparse, their light barely outlining the contours of the potholed pavement and the piles of black garbage bags along the roadside, emitting a sour, rotten smell.

Arthur followed the thin, slightly unsteady figure ahead, his hands still in his trench coat pockets, his fingertips repeatedly rubbing the rough edge of the rolled-up banknotes.

"Jansen," he said, his voice sounding abrupt in the silence.

The figure in front didn't stop, but its shoulders seemed to stiffen slightly.

Arthur quickened his pace to walk alongside Jason, his gaze falling on the latter's sunken cheekbone. "I'll give you a hundred dollars; you tell me about Murphy. Intelligence trading, fair and square."

Jason abruptly stopped and turned around.

In the dim light, his eyes were sunken deep in their sockets, but his pupils were unusually bright, flashing with a sickly, stubborn light.

"It's a deal." He emphasized each word, his voice hoarse. "I don't want to take advantage of you. My rules are my rules—you pay a hundred dollars to sleep with my wife, and I'll tell you."

"Why?" Arthur was puzzled, not by the content of the sentence, but by the almost solemn expression on Jason's face when he said it. "Why does it have to be this kind of 'rule'? The money goes directly into your hands, and the result is the same."

Jason grinned, revealing his uneven, yellowish-black teeth.

"Because that wouldn't be a fair exchange," he explained earnestly. "I don't have much information to tell you; that kind of exchange is charity. I don't accept charity."

"So having your wife... provide services isn't charity?"

“That’s work.” Jason straightened his hunched back, a gesture that made him look even smaller. “She provides the service, you pay her. I provide the information, as… an intermediary. Fairness is the rule of doing business.”

He turned and continued walking forward, his steps more steady than before.

Arthur followed, the night wind rustling the scraps of paper scattered along the roadside.

"Are you proud?" he asked, his voice lowered.

Jensen paused for a few steps.

"My wife is white," he suddenly said.

Arthur didn't reply.

“Besides working as a prostitute for bosses and foremen,” Jason continued, his voice echoing through the empty streets, “she can also sell herself on the street. A hundred dollars a time. Do you know how much a prostitute in Latin America charges? Twenty dollars. Twenty.”

He stretched out two withered fingers and waved them in the air.

"So we had no choice, but she was worth the price. I... I'm proud of it."

"pride?"

"Yes, I'm proud!"

Jensen's voice rose, filled with excitement.

"She's willing! This is how we survive! What do you know, someone dressed in a trench coat and shiny leather shoes? Have you ever seen a child so hungry they're biting their nails? Have you ever seen someone who, because they missed a day of medication, is in so much pain they bang their head against the wall until they pass out?"

His breathing became rapid, and his chest heaved violently.

"We have no choice. But even in this situation where we have no choice, we still have rules, and we still have prices. White people, one hundred per time. That's the rule. If you follow it, I'll tell you about Murphy. If you don't..."

He paused, his voice suddenly dropping to a low pitch, mingling with the sound of the wind, "Then get lost."

Arthur stopped in his tracks.

Jason took a few more steps forward, then stopped when he realized no one was behind him, but he didn't turn around.

"Jansen," Arthur said, trying to keep his voice steady, "get away from that foreman. Get away from this construction site. Emerald Dream City is big; there will always be other places that need workers."

A short, dry laugh escaped from Jason's throat.

"leave?"

He slowly turned around, his face full of absurdity.

"What can I leave with? I have no education; I didn't even finish high school. I have no skills; all I know is how to swing a sledgehammer, move bricks, and mix cement. Besides this construction site, where else would hire me? A useless person who might tremble and cry at any moment due to withdrawal symptoms?"

"You can quit."

"Give it up?" Jason seemed to have heard the most ridiculous joke in the world. He took two steps closer and got right up to Arthur.

Up close, Arthur could see the grime embedded in every pore of his face, smell the sweet, chemically foul scent of the enhancer in his breath, and see his pupils unnaturally dilated.

"My children and I need this. Without it, I can't work, and they won't have food. It takes several days to quit drugs. How many days can a person live without food?"

Jason's voice was so low it was like a whisper, yet every word pierced Arthur's ears.

"I started using it when I was 26 or 27. Except for my eldest daughter, who was born before that, the rest of my children..."

He licked his chapped lips.

"They all use it. They're born with it, they're addicted. If they don't use it, it hurts, it's a pain that drills into their bones, it hurts so much they scream, they writhe in agony. Only when they use it can they calm down, can they eat, sleep, and even... smile like a human being."

He took a step back, created some distance, and shook his head.

"You want me to quit? I'd have to strangle my wife and three kids with my own hands first, and then wait to die of agony in a ditch someday. That's the price of leaving. Are you willing to pay?"

Arthur did not speak.

The wind grew colder.

"Besides," Jason smirked, a cruel smile playing on his lips, "only the foreman has the cheap enhancer. Not cheap, but half the price of the black market. If I don't gamble, if I don't let him take a cut, he won't give me any work. No work, no money. No money, no money for the drug. No money for the drug..."

He didn't finish speaking, but his meaning was clear.

This is a perfect closed loop, a meticulously operated system that exploits the very bottom of society. Work, gambling, drugs, sex work—all interlocked to ensure no one can escape.

"What about Murphy?" Arthur changed the subject, knowing it was pointless to dwell on Jason's survival logic. "Is he part of this cycle too?"

Jensen's eyes flickered, and the morbid excitement subsided.

"The foreman forced him to gamble and arranged for him to incur debts with gangsters; this was a common tactic used by the foreman."

Jason continued walking forward.

"A huge debt. The gang threatened to sell his daughter if he couldn't pay it back. Murphy panicked. Neither he nor his daughter had ever used any enhancement products. He didn't want to rot here like us."

Jason shook his head and sighed.

"He started taking on jobs like crazy, working three or sometimes four jobs a day. Unloading cargo at the dock, sweeping the streets in the early morning, and going to another construction site in the afternoon... He was spinning like a top, and even slept standing up."

Arthur lit another cigarette.

"and then?"

"Then he fell ill," Jason said calmly. "He coughed up blood, had a fever, and became emaciated. But he couldn't stop until the debts were paid off."

"But that happened last week." He kicked away an empty can at his feet, the metallic scraping sound particularly jarring in the silence. "After that, he never showed up again."

"Does the foreman know where he went?"

"The foreman?" Jason scoffed. "The foreman only cares about whether he can collect his debts. Murphy's gone, and the foreman's angrier than anyone else. But that's all. Even if one Murphy is gone, there are still ten, a hundred Jasons waiting to work for him, gamble with him, and buy his drugs."

Where do you think Murphy is right now?

Jason stopped in his tracks.

They had left the edge of the industrial zone and entered a more dilapidated residential area.

The houses were low and cramped, with large patches of paint peeling off the exterior walls, revealing the damp and blackened wooden structure underneath. Many windows had no glass and were haphazardly nailed together with wooden boards or plastic sheeting.

The air was filled with a complex stench of garbage, excrement, and mold.

A few remaining streetlights cast a dim yellow glow, illuminating the mottled graffiti on the walls and the winding, unidentified black water stains on the ground.

"He's probably still working somewhere, panting like a dog about to die from exhaustion," Jason said, his voice drifting as he gazed at the dark alleyway in the distance. "Maybe..."

He paused.

"Maybe he's already collapsed on some nameless roadside, dead like a stray dog. Nobody knows him, nobody will claim his body. If he's lucky, a municipal cleanup crew will take him away in a few days and send him to some incinerator, or... who knows."

He spoke so calmly, describing something that happens every day and is taken for granted.

Arthur took a drag of his cigarette and nodded slightly; he'd seen this kind of thing quite often.

He thought of Selena, of Murphy's kind smile in the photo, and of the despair and hope that mingled in the girl's eyes.

That glimmer of hope, in this boundless darkness and in Jansen's bland narration, seemed so faint, so laughable.

"We're here," Jason said.

He stopped in front of a two-story wooden house that looked more dilapidated than the others.

The house has no front yard; the door opens directly onto the sidewalk. The paint on the door has long since peeled off, and the wooden surface is covered with cracks and wormholes.

Jason stood in front of the door, but did not push it open immediately.

He turned around and looked at Arthur, his face expressionless, with only two faint lights in his deep-set eyes.

"The rules," he repeated, his voice hoarse, "One hundred dollars. Go in, complete the transaction. Then, I'll tell you what I know about where Murphy ended up."

He raised his hand and made a gesture.

"This is the only way you can get information from me."

Arthur looked at the door.

Behind the door, there was the noise of a television, the crying of children, and rustling sounds, but inside there was a heavy, deathly silence waiting to be broken.

But he needs intelligence.

Selena needs answers.

Murphy needs... even just a definite ending.

Jason was still watching him, waiting.

The wind swept through the dilapidated streets, stirring up dust and debris.

In the distance, the faint sound of police sirens could be heard, sharp and distant, before being quickly swallowed by the night.

Arthur took a deep breath.

The smell of rust, garbage, and despair filled his chest.

He reached out, not to take out money, but to gently grasp the cold doorknob.

"Her name is Martha," Jason said in a low voice. "She's upstairs. The first room on the right."

Arthur did not look at him.

His gaze fell on the doorknob, which was covered in years of grime and scratches.

He twisted it forcefully.

The door hinges creaked open slowly inwards.

The darkness inside the door was thicker than that outside.

Only a faint ray of light leaked down from the corner of the narrow staircase leading to the second floor, barely outlining the shape of the ground floor living room.

You can see crooked tables and chairs, sofas piled with clutter, and empty wine bottles and plastic bags scattered on the ground.

There was no sign of life.

Or rather, all the breath of life is compressed and condensed, waiting to be released in that designated room upstairs.

Jason stepped aside and made a "please" gesture.

Arthur stepped over the threshold.

The wooden planks beneath his feet groaned slightly.

He walked into the house, and the door behind him was gently closed by Jason.

"Squeak—"

Then came a soft "click".

The sound of the door lock clicking shut was clearly audible in the quiet room.

Arthur stood in the center of the living room, motionless.

He could hear his own heartbeat, slow and heavy.

You can also hear a very faint rustling sound of fabric rubbing against each other coming from upstairs.

The wait has begun.

The other end of the transaction is upstairs.

Jason, at this moment, should be standing outside the door, leaning against the thin door panel, listening to the sounds inside, waiting for the hundred dollars.

How many times has he repeated this process?

Arthur did not go upstairs.

He turned around and faced the door that had just been closed.

The door panel was so thin that he could almost picture Jason standing outside, his back hunched over, pressed against the door panel.

"Jansen." He spoke to the door, his voice not loud, but clear enough.

There was no response from outside the door.

Only the sound of the wind, filtering through the cracks in the door, made a faint whistling sound.

"I know you're listening," Arthur continued calmly. "The core of the deal is the exchange of information, isn't it? I'm trading one hundred dollars for Murphy's information."

pause.

"Now, I'll slip a hundred dollars under the door."

He crouched down and pulled the banknote out of his pocket.

The pattern on the green paper was almost invisible in the dim light, with only a vague outline of Franklin discernible.

He held the banknote by one corner, spread it out flat, and then carefully stuffed it into the narrow gap at the bottom of the door.

The banknotes are thin, but the gaps between the banknotes are even narrower.

He needs to use his fingertips to push it in little by little.

Rough wood shavings scraped against the banknotes, making a soft, rustling sound.

Outside the door, there seemed to be a very faint gasp of cold air.

Half of the banknote had already been slipped out, while the other half remained in Arthur's fingertips.

"Now," Arthur said, remaining crouched and staring at the crack, "part of the money is already with you. The transaction has begun."

He loosened his fingers.

The remaining half of the banknote slid out through the gap and disappeared into the darkness outside the door.

"My part is done." Arthur stood up, dusting his hands off. "Now, it's your turn, Jason. Tell me, where might Murphy have ended up?"

A deathly silence.

Time passed second by second.

The faint light above the stairs seemed to flicker.

The rustling sounds upstairs also stopped.

at last.

Jason's voice rang out from outside the door.