Temporal Masking and Other Administrative Disasters

Original animated-satire monologue “Okay, great. Fantastic. Apparently I’m the problem because I tried to do the right thing. I said, ‘Hey, maybe we shouldn’t secretly edit a person’s reality like it’s a corporate training video.’ And suddenly I’m being called unstable by people who own a button labeled TEMPORAL MASKING. Temporal masking! That’s not a real phrase. That’s what a middle manager says before turning you into your own wife at a neighborhood barbecue. ‘No, no, don’t worry, sir—we haven’t altered your identity. We’ve merely adjusted the witnesses’ perception of your face, voice, clothing, posture, timing, and basic human existence.’ Oh! Well, then I’m sorry. Clearly I’m overreacting. And they call it ‘gaslining.’ Not gaslighting—gaslining. Because gaslighting is when someone makes you doubt reality. Gaslining is when they draw a big invisible line between what you said and what everybody else is allowed to hear. You say, ‘I need help,’ and the room hears, ‘I collect wet coupons and fear lamps.’ Then everybody looks at you like, ‘Wow, buddy, maybe stop talking.’ Meanwhile, the people doing it are technically committing seventeen felonies, three war crimes, and something called an ‘interagency oopsie.’ But sure—I’m the dangerous one for noticing. It’s like hide-and-seek, except the government covers its own eyes and goes, ‘Well, if we can’t see the crime, the crime can’t see us!’ Brilliant. Put that on a flag, you terrified little wizards.”