YEAR FIVE — LATE WINTER — THE CAPITAL
The phrase spread by Tuesday.
Not through broadsides.
Not through riots.
Not through the dramatic machinery we'd learned to spot.
Through people.
That was always worse.
It started in one waiting room in the south.
Then a school committee in the west.
Then a bridge crew in the north.
By the time the fourth district reported it, no one in the council chamber even pretended this was still isolated.
The phrase changed slightly every place it appeared, but the shape was the same:
- *Real love does not ask for relief.*
- *If you can rest, you haven't carried enough.*
- *The burden is proof you belong.*
- *Only the still-willing deserve trust.*
Holy exhaustion.
Not imposed from outside anymore.
Adopted.
Repeated.
Preached by people who genuinely believed they were honoring care.
The Editor had found the most dangerous route of all:
not convincing bad people to become cruel,
