The Silent Zone

Ever since that night three years ago, sounds have been bringing things here. The city learned to keep quiet: cloth shoes, cotton quilts, sandbags, sign language. No hammering nails, no honking horns. A city of nine million people, quiet as a well.

Hao Dong was a piano tuner with a special pass, number 0371, allowing him to make sounds indoors of no more than sixty decibels.

On November 5, someone asked him to tune a piano. The client said his grandson had an exam coming up.

There hadn't been any exams in this city for three years.