In the Dissolving Dust: When Golden Walls Fail to Bar the Mortal Wind (EP 11)

In the Dissolving Dust: When Golden Walls Fail to Bar the Mortal Wind

By : The zero stone

                                    "The truth is that we own 

nothing in this world

 not even our own breath."

On the highest floor of the towering glass monolith, within a simulated cosmos where wealth could purchase engineered silence and liquid-pure air, Bee stood watching A’s back, bent like a willow branch on the verge of snapping. The mechanical ventilator labored with a heavy, raspy rhythm, resembling the sound of coarse gravel dragged by retreating waves on a dark night. It was a cruel irony carved into their very bones. On the exact day their stock portfolios and recycling empire soared to their zenith, destiny returned with a vengeance, presenting a long-delayed invoice from the past in the form of terminal pulmonary failure.

The world-renowned specialists whom Bee had summoned with exorbitant sums of money — men whose minutes cost as much as solid gold — could do nothing but shake their heads in the dim light. The lead physician spoke in a tone flat yet piercing: this was not a newly contracted malady, but a "legacy." It was the inherited debt of toxic dust, burning plastic fumes, and heavy metal vapors from the monolithic landfills of the community where A had spent his destitute youth, and where Bee — a child of privilege — had once visited to donate goods, staying to play at scavenging and share humble meals with his friend.

At that time, Bee had viewed those moments merely as an exciting, transient adventure of youth, never imagining that those brief chapters of shared innocence would leave the residue of death buried exclusively within A's lung tissue. Those chemicals had burrowed deep, hibernating insidiously within A’s body for decades. The billions they possessed today could not retroactively redeem the breath mortgaged to the poverty of yesterday. Class and privilege had insulated Bee from the toxic fallout, leaving A to bear the fatal burden of the proletariat alone, reducing the supreme power of capital into mere digital dust and worthless ash before the immutable law of the Three Characteristics of Existence.

As the evening sun dipped low, bruising the sky into shades of crimson and amber like a canvas stained with blood and tears, A requested to be wheeled out onto the spacious balcony. A natural breeze brushed against his pale, sunken face. He managed a frail smile, his clouded eyes suddenly reflecting an uncanny, lucid brilliance. He watched the sun slowly drowning beneath the horizon before speaking in a voice whisper-thin, yet echoing profoundly within Bee’s conscience.

"Look at that, Bee... the sunlight is never biased. It shone upon the garbage heaps I once slept on, and it illuminates this skyscraper in the exact same way. When we were young, I ran from death out of starvation while you stepped into the ecosystem of poverty with pure innocence. Now, we sit waiting for it upon a mountain of gold that doesn't truly exist. The real inheritance I am leaving you isn't the shares or the company, my friend. It is the truth that we own nothing in this world — not even our own breath. Let it go."

Suddenly, the alarm on the life-support machine began to shriek, piercing through the wind. Panic seized Bee, shaking him to the core. He lunged forward, desperate to press the call button for the medical team, his trembling hands frantically adjusting the oxygen valve in a futile bid to buy time. A crushing weight of survivor's guilt consumed his heart, driving him to the brink of madness. Bee wept bitterly like a helpless child.

"Don't do this, A! The doctors can fix this! I’ll liquidate the contracts, I’ll sell all the shares just to find a way to save you! Why, A... didn't we breathe that same plastic smoke together back then? Why are you the only one who has to die? You cannot leave me here with this guilt!" The billionaire who once manipulated the gears of the market now wept like a terrified, helpless child before the mirror of death.

A reached out a frail but warm hand, grasping Bee’s wrist. The grip was weak yet firm, a silent command to halt the futile struggle. In A's opening palm lay a small, faded plastic bottle cap — a fragment of an old toy car Bee had playfully gifted to A during their early days of shared innocence. It held zero value on the trading floor, but at this supreme moment, it outweighed every financial contract on earth, serving as the sole anchor of true happiness that had never been commodified.

"It’s enough, Bee... the mortgage has expired," A whispered with a final smile.

As the final ray of daylight dissolved into the encroaching dark, A’s hand — once calloused from years of hard labor — slowly uncurled and fell limply by his side. The old plastic cap clattered onto the balcony floor just as the vital monitor emitted a flat, continuous tone. It left Bee on his knees amid the profound silence and naked truth of existence. The immense wealth they had built together was nothing more than a monument to failure, unable to bribe the grim reaper for even a fraction of a second. Amidst the creeping shadows, Bee finally grasped the weight of detachment, realizing that humans, in the grand calculus of the universe, are merely transient dust motes borrowing the world's air for a brief, fleeting moment.

i start from zero

👉 Read this story in Thai version : ในรอยละอองที่สลาย... เมื่อกำแพงทองคำมิอาจกั้นสายลมมรณา