Telempathy

The story follows an advertising executive who encounters a rival claiming to vicariously experience other people's emotions via small symbiotic creatures. After a public demonstration in an extravagant themed restaurant, the executive sees clear commercial and political uses: predicting consumer and audience reactions to products, campaigns, and media spectacles. The plot follows his uneasy engagement with that capability while exposing the comforts and excesses of the marketing world. The narrative satirizes celebrity worship and the commodification of feeling, and it raises ethical questions about responsibility, persuasion, and the collapsing boundary between private response and mass manipulation.