The False Paradise of Belleville

Welcome to Belleville. Forgetting is your only ticket in.

In the deepest folds of this city, neon lights never go out. Dragging the exhausted remnants of their souls, people writhe through the gullet known as "Forget-Me Alley," all to reach the monstrous nightclub at its end, Belleville, which exudes an irresistibly sweet scent. It promises the purest ecstasy, all for the price of a memory: the flutter of first love, the euphoria of success, or even... the ability to feel pain. Cut out a memory, and buy two hours in paradise.

I sold my first love. The pain of that cold hand pulling it away, along with the sugary taste of popcorn, was precisely uprooted by the System. The dizzying lightness of the resulting blankness was intoxicating. Then, at the frenzied peak of the dance, a strong, rusty stench pierced the sweet dream. Beneath the eerie play of light from the crystal chandeliers, I saw the "old me", my own face, frozen in a hollow smile, being silently dragged into the darkness in a corner.

"Congratulations," a velvet-smooth whisper murmured against my nerves. "You've earned an upgraded experience. Just sell one more memory of 'resistance.'"

In the pocket of my party uniform, my hand closed around the only things that didn't belong to Belleville: a cold plastic knife handle, and a metal fragment that had suddenly appeared, vibrating with an unknown force.

This is a record of how, in a hell of pleasurable memory-selling, I caught the scent of my own blood; how, under a cleanup directive that branded me a "malfunction," I tore open the glamorous facade and saw the fluorescent-gray sludge flowing beneath the synthetic skin; and how, amid the ruins forgotten by the System