5.3.2021

Rose is leading the group in meditation when Alpha breaks into the room.

Immediately trying to occupy the mind of the closest participant, Alpha cannot overcome the combined strength of merged minds and falls back into his own body. Shut out of an inner attack he tries to weaken the massed consciousness with a sting but Rose, having once felt that pain, is prepared and checks him with a thought loop so he feels the brunt of his own aggression. Frustrated with an entity he has never encountered and doesn't understand, Alpha mounts a verbal assault, trying to distract the group, fragment the merged mind, and attack individuals.

"Pussies!" he transmits to their audio channels, "Snowflakes! WokeTards!" Then he spams some porn to the video feeds but Rose easily traps all the packets and bins them. The collective is still in a deep trance a few minutes later when Alpha finally stops shouting insults.

"Very good," Rose says, in a soft and genuinely unperturbed voice, and begins to teach. "Our prompt for tonight is invective, looking at hate speech versus right speech, and hopefully Mr. Alpha here will be kind enough to lead us." Alpha scowls in anger as Rose proceeds to deconstruct his words and actions, showing great empathy for his positions as she recontextualizes them, explaining the origins of his insults and why they might offend, and carefully deconstructing his lies by pointing out where the truth is stretched and where his perspective makes things he opposes look untrue. Alpha interrupts her frequently by shouting personal insults and hate words.

"This is so valuable," she says to him, "what an opportunity you are giving us to study anger, to practice compassion, and to hold up a mirror to ourselves. Please don't leave!" Alpha turns red, hurls another volley of insults, and blips off the screen as Rose begs him to stay.

The room is filled with full on laughter for five minutes.

Home

Next Drawing