We at a silent meditation hall have embraced the new policy with the enthusiasm required by policy. A reader can sense a second story under the first: what the voice refuses to name, it circles with careful vocabulary. We celebrate efficiency by spending an hour explaining it. We praise transparency while speaking in acronyms. Pavel holds a cracked vinyl record like a tiny protest, but even that looks like compliance from far away. When the supervisor says, “This empowers you,” we nod, because nodding is what empowered people do. Later we will tell ourselves we chose this, which is the most comforting fiction of all.