The Silent City

By Vaios Kolofotias

There are voices that never fall silent,

even when no one is listening to them

― FEDERICO GARCÍA LORCA

ONCE, IT WAS common for us to talk. Everyone talked, everywhere and always. On buses, in cafes, on the streets. In parks, you could hear children’s laughter; at farmers’ markets, vendors advertised their goods; in coffee shops, the elderly shared stories. Then, one day, someone invented Silence.

Not just regular silence—that had always existed—but Silence™, an application that allowed people to communicate without making a sound.

At first, everyone saw it as a game. They downloaded the app and received thirty minutes of Silence per day for free. One could send their thoughts to anyone they wanted, as long as they also had the application. Soon, everyone had it. It was so convenient! No one needed to shout at the bar to place their order anymore. They just sent the order to the waiter. No need to speak on the metro—they sent a polite “excuse me” to the person in front of them. Silence packages were sold everywhere: Basic, Premium, Family. “Unlimited Silence for only 29.99 per month!” they advertised. Then came the decree. “For reasons of public safety and more effective governance,” all citizens were required to have the application installed. It began with incentives such as tax reductions or priority in public services. Afterwards it continued with threats.

Maria from the third floor was the first to be punished. They caught her singing a lullaby to her baby on the balcony. The next day they cut off her electricity. “Violation of the Digital Communication Code,” the notice read. Next, it was George from the kiosk, who insisted on shouting the news to passersby. They revoked his license, due to “Noise pollution and obstruction of public order,” they said.

Silence packages became mandatory: basic for low-wage earners, premium for civil servants, family for those with children. “For the good of the new generation,” they said. Within a few months, the city had sunk into a strange stillness.

At the time, I was working at a company that created advertisements. We had taken on the Silence campaign and were working feverishly. “The revolution in communication,” “Speak without speaking,” “Silence is golden—literally,” “Upgrade your silence—Premium package with unlimited emotional reactions.”

We made videos of smiling families communicating silently at dinner, employees meeting in complete silence, and of couples falling in love without exchanging a word. We designed posters with slogans like “Don’t let your voice betray you—Choose Silence,” “The future is soundless.” We were proud to be part of something so innovative.

Until I met Mr Antonis.

Mr Antonis lived on the top floor of an old apartment building downtown. I accidentally ran into him one afternoon as I was walking down the street. He was standing on his balcony and singing. Normally, with his voice. It was so strange that I stopped to listen. He saw me and gestured for me to come up.

His apartment was filled with old sound machines: gramophones, cassette players, and radios. And in the middle of the living room stood a strange object that looked like a large funnel. “It’s a voice collector,” he explained. “It gathers the voices that no one uses anymore.”

I thought he was joking until I leaned over to look inside the funnel. There, in small glass jars, he kept voices. “This is the voice of a grandmother who told stories by the fireplace,” he said, pointing to a jar that glowed softly, like a smouldering fire. “In this one, I’ve saved the last troubadour of the city,” he said, pointing to a jar that glowed like a firefly at dusk. Each jar had its own story.

“Why do you collect them?” I asked.

“Because someday we’ll need them again,” he answered. “When people remember what it’s like to truly speak.”

I began to visit him regularly. It was the only place where I could hear actual voices. He taught me how to distinguish the different tones: children’s laughter was like small bubbles dancing in a jar; romantic confessions glowed with a deep red light; arguments swirled like small storms, folk songs from festivals vibrated like colorful ribbons; children’s carols twirled like gold dust; prayers of the faithful hovered like blue clouds; stadium chants burst like colorful fireworks, and the stories of grandfathers about the war left dark shadows that trembled on the walls of the jars.

One day, he showed me a special jar. “This is the first voice I saved,” he said. “The voice of my wife, just before she started using Silence.” Inside the jar, a sweet melody sang an old love song.

“What happened to her?” I asked.

“Like everyone else,” he said bitterly, “She stopped talking. Now we communicate only through the app. She says it’s more convenient that way…”.

Another time, I went to visit him and found the apartment empty. On the table was a note: “I have to leave. They’re coming to check the building for ‘unauthorized sounds.’ I’m leaving you a gift.” Next to the note was a small jar. Inside, my own voice was singing a song I had forgotten I knew. It was strange how a voice could be both so familiar and yet so unknown. At first, I didn’t dare open the jar. I held it in my hands and looked at it—inside, my voice resembled liquid light that danced.

The first time I opened it was at midnight. The city had sunk into its usual digital silence. I unscrewed the lid with trembling hands, and the voice poured into the room like perfume from an old bottle. It was me at eighteen, singing at a gathering. Each time, I discover something new. The brief pause before the chorus, the tremor in the voice, the unexpected laugh at the end of a verse.

Now, years later, I still keep that jar. At night, when the city is immersed in its Silence, I open it a little and let my voice slip out. It’s the only reminder I have of the state the world was once in, when people still dared to speak, to laugh loudly, to sing in the streets, to fall in love with words instead of emojis, to argue with shouts instead of messages, to live with all the sounds the human soul makes when it is truly free.

Some nights, when the city sleeps under the veil of its imposed silence, I hear sounds that shouldn’t exist. Whispers, songs, laughter— small pockets of resistance that refuse to die out. Perhaps Mr Antonis left other jars behind. There are other guardians of voice, scattered throughout the city like seeds of freedom, waiting for the right moment to take root. We keep our voices in glass jars, not to hide them, but to protect them until the time comes when people will again remember the power of their living voice. Because the voice is not just sound—it is the very essence of our freedom.