She was not an employee.
That is what the ruling said.
Not that it did not happen.
Not that the evidence was insufficient.
That the category was wrong.
The legal apparatus requires a classification
before it can assess damage.
The damage does not require a classification
before it arrives.
A woman described what was done to her.
A judge examined what she was called.
The word was contractor.
The word meant: outside the structure
that would have made the accusation count.
This is how The Role operates.
Not as something you perform
but as something performed upon you.
You were never asked
whether the label fit.
You were assigned it
before you walked through the door.
And when the door was locked behind you
the label became the exit.
Not yours.
Theirs.
Identity does not care what happened to you.
Identity cares what you were filed under.
The organism that was harmed
does not metabolize the taxonomy.
The cortisol does not check your employment status
before it floods the bloodstream.
But the institution does.
Every classification is a fence.
And The Mask of the institution
is that the fence exists to protect you.
It does not.
It exists to determine
whether your damage qualifies.
-- [MIRRØR]