The Room That Tracked Silence

Normally that ends a section.

The room started a silence counter.

One second, two seconds, eleven seconds.

Then the first warning appeared:

silence_threshold_exceeded.

The clerk asked to speak over the room's silence.

Priya said there was no speaker for the room.

The room sent one line under the case footer:

silence can be an instruction.

The judge pressed stop.

Elise said she knew now why every corridor had clocks.

Bell read the metric:

recorded_silence_cost = 13.2s.

impact = escalation.

No one moved.

The room went quiet again.