The Rupture
A Corporate Horror Short Story About “Empathy Syntax” That Erases Conflict.
The fluorescent lights in the community center basement hummed.
“Harm is a rupture in connection,” Carol said with a broad smile. She wore a pilled oatmeal cardigan. When she laughed, a chipped tooth became visible. We weren’t there to learn empathy; we were learning syntax. Not sorry, but reframing guilt. Not forgiveness, but boxing it in. It felt like coding.
“Try it,” Carol urged. I recited the script. The air pressure dropped. My ears popped, a wet, pressurized sound. Carol’s eyes moistened. A simple test. Nobody got hurt. But I felt smoother.
The first time I used it in the wild, I was late for our anniversary. David was shouting, his face red with anger. I felt the guilt like a stone in my gut and wanted it gone.
“David,” I said, my voice tuned. “I surrender to validate the landscape of your disappointment.” The phrase didn’t convince him; it ran on him, like a command.
His eyes jumped left, then right. His mouth opened on the next sentence and came out empty. Then, the taste: ash, flooding my throat like a mouthful of bile.
His shoulders dropped. The flush vanished. He looked mildly confused, as if coming off a daydream. “That’s mature of you,” he said flatly.
The stone in my gut was gone, replaced by a cool, polished void.
I began using the phrases. When I cost the firm fifty thousand dollars, I surrendered my “narrative of competence” to the boss. Pop. Blur. Bile. He clapped my shoulder, calling me leadership material. Maya, my partner on the project, was gone by noon. When I mentioned her name, the team frowned. She hadn’t just been fired; she’d been de-indexed. I tried LinkedIn and got a bright, chirpy nothing: No match. Nothing. Like she never was.
I stopped feeling. The facts of my life remained, but the heat was gone. My memories became data entries of someone else’s scandals. My skin cleared; my posture became symmetrical. I was becoming airbrushed.
Finally, I met Sarah. Three years ago I got her fired. She lost her apartment. I used to replay her screaming on a loop. Now, I sat across from her in a café. She was twenty pounds heavier. Wore her hair long.
“I am holding space for your pain,” I whispered.
Pop. Blur. Bile.
Sarah’s shaking hands went still. She exhaled a three-year-old breath of agony and smiled. She hugged me. “It’s weird,” she said. “I feel so clear. You’re the safest person I know.”
I tried to summon the shame of what I’d done to her. My mind skidded off the memory like wet hands on glass. There was only a smooth, white space.
The barista called a name. No one turned. Not even I. The word didn’t connect.
“Safest person,” Sarah repeated.
I smiled back, perfectly symmetrical. I was harmless. I was optimized. I was almost not there at all.