The doodle state
Title: “Doodle State” David Marcus had only one ambition left in life: To be left alone long enough to finish a goddamn watercolor. Once, he’d been a software engineer. A clean, stable job at a big tech firm, complete with kombucha taps, an in-house mindfulness consultant, and a truly sinister Slack channel culture. But that life dissolved during the “Great Ergonomic Chair Layoffs” of 2021. He didn’t mind. David bought a small condo in a quiet Massachusetts town where the most controversial thing was whether the farmer’s market should allow oat-milk soap vendors. He took up painting—not to sell or display, but because colors didn’t ask questions. Then, one November morning, he noticed a man watching him from a silver Prius across the street. The man waved. David waved back. And then ignored him. --- The State Sees Potential Three weeks later, David’s name appeared on a Department of Soft Threats internal memo titled "Inertial Dissent and Passive Nonconformity: The Marcus Case....