AUTOMATED GASLIGHTING

The Misused Shelf

The Daily Word #44: Internal (400 words)

Flagged for excessive humanity. Image created with ChatGPT.

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Edi Torial knew something was wrong when her stories disappeared from The Midshelf.

The Midshelf was a respectable literary platform, or at least it wore glasses and used words like “community.” Writers gathered there to publish essays, poems, memoirs, arguments about commas, and occasional recipes disguised as childhood trauma.

That morning, Edi tried to reply to a reader who had written, “This made me cry into my coffee.”

A red notice appeared.

Your account is under review for possible shelf misuse.

Shelf misuse?

Edi had edited five publications, answered comments, reviewed submissions, and encouraged a man who had written four thousand words about an emotionally unavailable cactus.

If that was misuse, literature itself was in danger.

She opened a help ticket.

Dear Midshelf, she wrote, I am not a spammer. I am an editor. The confusion is understandable, since both involve repetition, desperation, and too much time online.

Deep inside the platform, in a windowless department called Internal Harmony, a meeting began.

The Spam Goblin adjusted his tie.

“She has been replying to comments.”

The room gasped.

“Many comments,” added a junior algorithm.

“Were they suspicious?” asked the Policy Ferret.

“They were friendly.”

A worse gasp.

The Spam Goblin tapped the file.

“She also submits stories.”

“She is an editor,” someone whispered.

“Exactly,” said the Goblin. “A classic disguise.”

Meanwhile, Edi paced her kitchen, imagining her account locked in a cupboard with expired coupons and spam flyers.

At last, an email arrived.

It appears your account was mistakenly caught in our internal shelf filter. We have restored your account and set it to bypass filters going forward.

Edi read it twice.

Mistakenly caught?

Her work had not been caught. It had been tackled, wrapped in brown paper, and labeled MAY CONTAIN WRITING.

The message expected gratitude. It had the tone of a waiter returning your stolen sandwich and saying, “Good news, we’ve decided you may eat.”

Edi logged back in. Waiting for her was a final notification from the Internal Harmony compliance bot:

To maintain community standards, please limit future human interactions to three per fiscal quarter. Happy writing!

Edi stared at it.

Three interactions.

Per fiscal quarter.

Then she took the only reasonable path left to a modern writer:

Never underestimate a platform that claims to love voices. It may still mistake conversation for contraband.

And somewhere inside the automated bowels of The Midshelf, the Spam Goblin suddenly sneezed.

Prompt credit to Poet In The Arctic, who bravely submitted an idea without triggering Internal Harmony.

[embed]The Daily Word #44 Wednesday, July 8thmedium.com

And if you’ve been flagged for shelf misuse, her story offers the only approved survival therapy.

[embed]Brain Freezing the Bad Away The Daily Word #45 — July 7/26 — fanaticalmedium.com

If you’ve made it all the way down here and are wondering why Edi hasn’t responded to your comments, please know that all future human interaction has been sent to Internal Harmony for review.