10.09.25: The Silence Tax
In the future, silence is currency. City noise is free, but quiet costs money. Rich people buy apartments with thick walls and sleep like kings. The poor live where sirens and arguments never stop. Governments sell “silence minutes” like data plans, measured by sensors in your home. You learn to live without it. Constant sound becomes the background of life, until your ears buzz and your brain feels like static. But then someone invents an illegal device that cancels all sound around you for 10 seconds. Ten seconds of peace, traded like gold. The black market for silence explodes overnight.
