Previous Challenge Entry (Level 4 – Masters)
Topic: Transparent: Invisible, or obvious (11/27/25)
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TITLE: The Glass Soul Stratagem | Previous Challenge Entry
By Corinne Smelker
12/02/25 -
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Re: The Glass Soul Stratagem
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My Dear Strumpet,
You will forgive an old fiend her glee, but the current linguistic fashion among humans has handed us a weapon so elegant I can scarcely hold my glee. They have taken the harmless little word “transparent” and loaded it with two perfectly contradictory meanings, each more useful to Our Father Below than the last. One moment it means “impossible to see,” the next “impossible to miss.” The humans themselves barely notice the collision; they simply glide from one sense to the other as mood or context demands, never pausing to ask what such a word does to a soul that believes it. Delicious.
Your new patient who fancies herself “authentic” and “above the games people play” is ripe for the ploy. She is forever praising “transparency” in relationships, in leadership, in her insufferable little online journal. Excellent. We shall give her transparency until she chokes on it.
Begin with the obvious meaning first: transparent as in open, honest, plain for all to see. Encourage her to wear this meaning like a badge. Whisper that any hint of privacy is proof of shame, any unposted thought evidence of hypocrisy. Let her announce her every mood, doubt, and menstrual cramp on the platforms we have so thoughtfully provided. Make her believe that the more she reveals, the more virtuous she becomes. Soon her friends will know her bowel habits, her bank balance, and the precise flavour of her resentment toward her mother. She will call this “radical honesty” and feel saintly. In truth, of course, she is training everyone around her to see her as a tedious, slightly pitiable exhibitionist whose boundaries have dissolved like sugar in rain. The more “transparent” she becomes, the less anyone will actually look at her. They will scroll past, wincing—isolation disguised as connection; classic.
Now comes the exquisite turn. Begin planting the second meaning: transparent, as in invisible. Do it gently. Let her notice, almost by accident, that her endless confessions receive fewer likes than they once did. Let her discover that when she walks into a room with her brave, open smile, conversation falters for half a second before resuming. Seed the thought: “Perhaps I have become… transparent.” She will think she means “obvious, predictable, no longer interesting,” but the deeper poison is already working.
Encourage her to double down, naturally. If she is fading, she must try harder to be seen. More revelations, more dramatic vulnerability, more performative anguish. Each new post is a flare shot into a night that swallows it without echo. She will feel herself growing thinner, lighter, and more ethereal.
Here is the masterstroke, Strumpet: never let her notice that both meanings are happening at once. She is simultaneously the most exposed human in her circle (nothing left private, nothing held back) and the most invisible (nobody actually perceives her any longer; she has become background noise wearing skin). The contradiction will gnaw at her sanity far more effectively than any overt lie. She will oscillate wildly between the two interpretations of “transparent,” chasing first one salvation then the other, growing frantic, exhausting herself in perfect futility.
Should she ever stumble toward the Enemy’s dangerous definition (transparent as in “letting His light pass through unobstructed,” a vessel rather than a performer), act at once. Flood her feed with influencers who speak of “Christ-centred transparency” while carefully curating their lighting, angles, and tearful close-ups. Let her see that even the Enemy’s followers have learned to make a spectacle of humility. She will either imitate them (returning safely to performative visibility) or recoil in disillusionment (deciding all transparency, even the Enemy’s kind, is tainted). Either way, we win.
Keep her dancing between the two transparencies until her soul is stretched so thin it is, in the truest sense, transparent: something light can shine through, but nothing of substance remains to cast a shadow. When she finally arrives down here (and she will), she will still be trying to explain which kind of transparent she meant to be.
I am almost envious; this is one of the neatest torments I have designed in decades.
Your affectionate aunt,
Diabolica
P.S. Do remember that the phrase “clear as mud” is still available if you ever need a backup. One mustn’t let good contradictions go to waste.
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Well done!
Congratulations on your 2nd place in EC. I thought this was a clever story using the word transparent and enjoyed reading the story from beginning to end.
I liked how you made me think of how Satan uses transparency and deceives many people.