Hydraulics of Mercy

In the crumbling town of Ironvale, retired machinist Silas Reed turns his home into a lethal clockwork after a violent break-in. As the law wrestles with a hearsay-riddled trial under the Sixth Amendment, public sympathy erupts for the “poor old man.” But this tidal wave of compassion never reaches any institutional shore—it merely washes clean the conscience of a society that still leaves its loneliest to rot. A Mo Xi-esque meditation on solitude, self-defense, and the hollow ritual of performative empathy.