Where wealth accumulates, men decay.

Host: The city lay under a bruise-colored sky, its towers gleaming like blades of glass cutting through the fog. Rain had just ended, leaving the streets slick and reflective, a mirror to the neon veins pulsing above. In the distance, a billboard flickered — “Progress is Prosperity” — its light stuttering like a dying conscience.

Inside a quiet rooftop bar, the world seemed to pause. Jack sat at a corner table, his grey eyes shadowed beneath the dim glow of a pendant lamp, a glass of whiskey untouched before him. Jeeny entered, her coat damp, her hair clinging to her cheeks, her eyes carrying that same tired defiance that refused to fade.

Between them, on the table, lay a small card — on it, the words that had sparked their meeting tonight:

“Where wealth accumulates, men decay.” — Oliver Goldsmith

Jack: (leaning back, voice low and rough) “It’s always the same sermon. Wealth is the villain, money the disease, and decay the moral punishment. But tell me, Jeeny — since when did poverty ever make a man pure?”

Jeeny: (removing her coat, setting it neatly aside) “It’s not about purity, Jack. It’s about balance. When wealth piles up in one corner, the soul begins to starve. The riches feed the body, but they empty the heart.”

Host: The rainlight from the window painted their faces in silver and shadow. A slow jazz song drifted from the bar’s speaker, the saxophone’s moan threading through the silence between their words.

Jack’s fingers traced the rim of his glass, a faint ringing sound, like the tick of an invisible clock.

Jack: “You romanticize decay, Jeeny, as if it’s the price of comfort. But what if wealth is just another form of survival? A shield against the chaos. Maybe it’s not the gold that rots us—it’s what we do when we have nothing.”

Jeeny: “No. It’s what we do when we have too much. When comfort becomes numbness, when abundance becomes a mirror that only reflects ourselves. That’s when the decay begins.”

Jack: (smirking faintly) “So what—you’d rather we all suffer equally? That’s not virtue, that’s madness. Wealth, Jeeny, is just compressed ambition. It’s not the enemy—it’s evidence.”

Host: A flash of lightning lit the room, the city’s skyline momentarily etched in white fire. The bartender looked up, but said nothing — just kept polishing the same glass, listening like a man trapped inside a parable.

Jeeny leaned forward, her voice softer, but her words sharper, like a knife wrapped in silk.

Jeeny: “Evidence of what, Jack? Of success? Or of theft dressed as achievement? The rich build walls, not bridges. They collect, but they don’t connect. The more they own, the less they feel. That’s what Goldsmith meant — that when wealth accumulates, humanity erodes.”

Jack: “You think wealth kills empathy—I think it just reveals what was never there. You can’t blame the gold for the greed. It’s just metal, Jeeny. The rot starts in the man, not the coin.”

Jeeny: “But the coin feeds it. It’s not metal anymore, Jack—it’s measure. Value turned into a weapon. The more one has, the less one listens. The richer the house, the colder the heart.”

Host: Jack’s eyes hardened, his voice dropping to a hushed growl. The cigarette smoke coiled above him like a serpent of doubt.

Jack: “And yet you’re here, drinking in a bar you couldn’t afford five years ago. You work, you earn, you spend. You’re part of it too, Jeeny. You’re standing in the same temple, just praying at a different altar.”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “Yes. But I try not to forget it’s a temple. Most people believe it’s the world.”

Host: The wind outside rattled the glass panes, as if the city itself disapproved. A sirene wail rose and fell, then faded, leaving behind the heavy silence of civilization’s heartbeat.

Jeeny reached for her cup, hands trembling slightly — not from fear, but from fervor.

Jeeny: “Do you know why decay happens, Jack? It’s not because people get rich. It’s because they forget to need each other. Wealth teaches independence, and independence breeds isolation. When no one needs anyone, we stop evolving—we just expand.”

Jack: (quietly) “Expansion is still growth.”

Jeeny: “Not if it’s hollow. A tree that grows only upward without roots—eventually it falls.”

Host: A moment passed, thick as smoke. The rain began again — softer, steadier — washing the city lights into long ribbons of color.

Jack looked down at his hands, at the watch gleaming on his wrist, at the ring he no longer wore. The reflection in his glass showed a man both sated and starved.

Jack: “You talk as if wealth is poison, but you forget—it’s also medicine. It builds schools, saves lives, fuels dreams. Decay happens when people stop thinking, not when they start earning.”

Jeeny: “And yet, the more they earn, the less they see. The medicine becomes the addiction. The school becomes a status symbol. The dream becomes a distraction. That’s the alchemy of decay—turning need into narcissism.”

Jack: “Then what’s your cure, Jeeny? Poverty as a virtue? Sacrifice as salvation?”

Jeeny: (shaking her head) “No. Gratitude as resistance. Simplicity as strength. The wealth that doesn’t accumulate, but circulates—that’s the kind that keeps men alive.”

Host: A thunderclap cracked overhead, the lights flickered, and for an instant, both their faces were caught in the same flash—Jack’s angular, Jeeny’s illuminated with quiet fervor. Two philosophies suspended in a moment of lightning.

Jack: (after the silence returns) “Maybe the rot isn’t in the rich, but in the stillness. Stagnation—that’s decay. Money needs to move, like blood. When it stops, everything dies.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. But the blood doesn’t know where it’s going anymore. It just pumps, faster, harder, feeding nothing but the heart of greed. The body—the world—gets cold.”

Host: They both sat back, breathing, the argument cooling into thought. The bar was nearly empty now, the bartender wiping down the counter with mechanical rhythm. Outside, the city glowed like a wound wrapped in glass.

Jeeny spoke first, her voice quiet, almost tender.

Jeeny: “You know, Jack… maybe it’s not that wealth makes men decay. Maybe it just reveals the decay that was waiting. When the hunger ends, the hollowness begins.”

Jack: (nodding slowly) “And yet we keep chasing it. Maybe that’s the curse—to want more even when we have enough.”

Jeeny: “That’s the human paradox. We build palaces around our emptiness, thinking they’ll echo less.”

Host: A thin beam of moonlight broke through the clouds, falling across the table, the paper, the half-empty glasses. It was a pale light, but honest—the kind that reveals rather than hides.

Jack lifted his glass, but instead of drinking, he simply watched the light refract through the amber liquid, as though seeing his own reflection dissolve.

Jack: “Maybe Goldsmith wasn’t warning about money, but about forgetting. About what happens when we start valuing the gold more than the giver.”

Jeeny: “Yes. Because decay isn’t just moral—it’s emotional. When we stop feeling, we stop being.”

Host: The music faded, the last note of the saxophone lingering in the air like a held breath. The rain had stopped again, the streets glistening, quiet, expectant.

They sat together in silence, the distance between them no longer oppositional, but shared—two sides of the same coin, still spinning.

Host: And when Jack finally spoke, it was with the tired wisdom of someone who had seen both poverty and plenty, and found emptiness hiding in each.

Jack: “Maybe where wealth accumulates, it’s not that men decay—it’s that they forget how to need. And maybe… that’s the beginning of death.”

Jeeny: (whispering) “Then perhaps the cure isn’t to have less, but to remember more.”

Host: The moonlight shifted, softening their faces, as if the city itself had forgiven them. The wind swept through the open window, stirring the paper on the table, carrying Goldsmith’s words into the night—

“Where wealth accumulates, men decay.”

Host: But beneath that echo, another truth lingered—
That decay is not born of gold, but of forgetting the worth of the heart.

And as the lights dimmed, the city breathed again—
restless, rich, and faintly, painfully, alive.