Not such a distant future.
New reality calls for new measures. Even though each year saw an introduction of quieter vehicles, quieter machines and quieter cities, the exponential rate of development and the growth of economies resulted in increasing levels of noise pollution. Urban soundscapes became more and more unbearable. Silence seemed in conflict with our need for progress.
But then someone—no one really remembers who—suggested a trully philosophical solution. Instead of fighting the noise around us, we could adjust our hearing to simply hear less. This became known as “artificial silence”. In fact, there was nothing revolutionary about it, as silence is not an absolute term anyway—it had been always relative to human hearing range and hearing sensitivity. Shifting conditions around us should induce changes inside our auditory apparatus. Artificial silence made it happen just a bit fatser.
Lured by the opportunities offered by liberalising soundscape legislation, many industries initiated a global programme of vaccinations against noise pollution. Every newborn was conditioned to perceive silence the way it was adequate in terms of modern standards. Children were vaccinated in schools, adults in their workplaces. Alongside measuring one’s blood pressure conditioning was made a standard procedure during every hospitalisation. Soon almost everyone became adjusted. Almost...
Some individuals remained “hyper-sensitive”. They were not vaccinated for varius reasons, be it medical, practical or religious. Nevertheless, this two percent of the population became treated as aurally disabled. To include them into the mainstream of the society, different substitute methods for impairing hearing were developed.
And this is when my story begins...
