The Boy Who Sold Silence

In the distant city of Auris, noise was everywhere. Horns blared without pause. Advertisements screamed from every wall. Even shoes were fitted with speakers to broadcast their wearer’s mood. People didn’t just talk—they shouted to be heard above the chaos. Silence was extinct, a forgotten relic in a hyper-connected world.

That is, until a boy named Luan arrived.

He was not born in Auris. Luan came from a small mountain village where the wind whispered through pine trees, and the loudest thing was the occasional bark of a dog or a grandmother's laughter. His parents had moved to the city chasing jobs, leaving behind the quiet that had raised him. For Luan, the city felt like being trapped in a tornado made of voices.

At first, he wore noise-canceling headphones everywhere, but they only muffled the madness. Then he began sitting in alleys, closing his eyes, trying to remember what silence felt like. Sometimes, if he focused hard enough, he could almost hear the snow falling back home.

Word spread quickly about “the strange boy who listens to nothing.” Some laughed. Some pitied him. But others—those tired, frayed at the edges by the constant cacophony—began to wonder what he was hearing in the silence they had long forgotten.

One evening, a young woman named Raya sat across from him in a crowded square. She didn’t speak. She only sat. And Luan, as always, sat too—silent and still. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty.

When she opened her eyes, something had changed. She felt calm. Her racing thoughts had slowed. The city still screamed, but it didn’t seem as loud. She looked at Luan. “What did you do to me?”

“I didn’t do anything,” he said softly. “You did it. You let the silence in.”

The next day, she returned. And the next. And then more people came. Businessmen. Mothers. Street performers. They all sat with him in the noise, chasing that elusive moment of stillness. Slowly, a line began forming beside the fountain where he meditated. The city buzzed with curiosity.

A news outlet picked up the story. “Boy Charges for Silence in Downtown Auris” the headline read. It was exaggerated—Luan had never asked for money. But the attention brought crowds. And with the crowds came demand.

A tech mogul approached him. “What you have is rare. Marketable. We can brand this. Package silence. Sell it by the hour. Call it ‘Stillness Therapy.’”

Luan refused.

But his silence had already become a product. People began mimicking him—“silent coaches” sprang up in glass boxes on rooftops. Apps launched with ambient sounds and pixelated images of boys sitting quietly under trees. It wasn’t the same. But it didn’t matter. The illusion was enough for most.

Luan watched it all quietly. He didn’t protest. He didn’t engage. He just kept sitting.

One day, a child came to him—a boy no older than ten. “I brought something for you,” the child said, placing an old tape recorder on the bench.

“What’s this?” Luan asked.

“A recording. Of silence.”

Luan pressed play.

Wind rustled. A distant bell rang once. Leaves whispered. No engines. No voices. Just space. Just peace.

Luan closed his eyes and wept.

That night, he disappeared. No one saw him leave. His fountain bench remained empty. The line dissolved. The square returned to its noisy norm.

Weeks passed. His absence made headlines. “The Silence Boy Vanishes.” “Was It a Hoax?” The silence he left behind felt louder than the noise ever had.

But in the quiet corners of the city, something had shifted. People began turning off their devices before bed. Cafés introduced “quiet hours.” A school taught five minutes of daily silence to students. It wasn’t much. But it was a start.

And then, one day, a note appeared on his old bench. No one saw who left it. It simply read:

> “Silence cannot be sold.
It can only be shared.
Listen carefully.
It’s still here.”



Beneath the bench, someone noticed the tape recorder from before—left behind, gently humming the sound of wind and pine.