The first notice came in an eggplant envelope. Inside, an invoice detailed the minutes of silence that I had "consumed" that week: 34 minutes and 12 seconds of uncomfortable pauses, non -monetized sighs and empty looks without declaring. "Silence is a luxury," prayed the motto of the City Council, stamped next to a logo of an ear tacted with an X. When protesting in the window, an official with an unresoluble equations tied. "Lord, even the disapproval gestures have a cost," said, pointing out a bubble graph where my frown was priced at € 0.23 per wrinkle. I asked him if the mental lagoons also tribute. "Only if they exceed 10 seconds," replied, giving me a brochure : "How to turn their forgetfulness into tax deductions." When leaving, I ran into a manifestation of Summary furniture  (chairs that claimed pensions for emotional wear). A Chester sofa shouted : "They sat about Nietzsche and did not even give us a compensation cushion!". The riot police, armed with presocratic philosophers feathers, tried to disperse them. At home, my fridge had started a hunger strike. "I do not store more vegetables without existential purpose," announced, spitting a cucumber that immediately began to recite Unamuno. I decided to exile to the park, where the banks charged for minutes of introspection and the birds sang jingles of life insurance.  In the end, I paid the fine with secondary coins stolen from sun watches. The official whispered me : "Next time, he laughed in hexadecimal. It is deductible." And so, I learned that in a world where even the vacuum is price, the only rebellion is yawning in binary code.

By Carlos del Puente relatos