The Empathy Broker
In the new economy, even your feelings can be subcontracted
In a world where feelings can be outsourced for a fee, Taylor trades compassion for rent until there's almost nothing left to trade.
Taylor swiped through their workforce app, the tasks glowing impersonally. One request was nauseatingly direct: "Immediate compassion for elderly caregiving shift." The rent was due tomorrow, so the choice wasn't one.
The app was designed for efficiency, allowing temp workers like Taylor to outsource emotions—compassion, enthusiasm, patience—to distant emotional freelancers. These subcontractors were paid minimal wages and remotely provided genuine emotional responses, enabling workers to perform tasks quickly and without psychological strain.
Taylor sighed, tapped accept, and felt a chill slice through their chest, and then nothing.
At Sunset Acres, an ironically named home for fading souls, Taylor changed bed linens, spooned oatmeal, and endured endless stories of lost loves, distant grandchildren, and aching joints. Residents smiled gratefully, oblivious that Taylor’s compassion had been outsourced halfway across the globe.
Returning home, Taylor’s reflection warped in the subway’s strained fluorescence; it was pale and barely there. Each job had quietly hollowed Taylor’s emotional foundation, leaving memories intact but sentimentally vacant.
Payday came. The app displayed a precariously low soul-credit balance. Rules cautioned against outsourcing over fifty percent of one’s emotional core; Taylor teetered at forty-eight.
Closing the app brought fleeting relief. Tonight held enough emotion for comfort. Tomorrow meant waking empty, trading again, and questioning what had been lost and what might be regained.
I’m keeping this free because that feels right. If you want to support it anyway, out of some quiet belief in people making things, there’s a button for that. There are no special perks, just the work and a thank you.