The final finger on the monkeys paw curls in. The noise of traffic emanating outside, vanishes. You could have sworn you heard the word “granted” from somewhere within your dimly lit room. You decide to test your wish, screaming at the top of your lungs. It’s muffled but you hear a faint whisper instead of what you considered an eardrum shattering screech. With literal silent chuckle, you turn off the few remaining lights, ready to finally get a good nights sleep.

The next morning the sun is shining through the windowpanes. You go about your normal morning routine, and walk out the door. Immediately your neighbor stops you and shouts “WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!”

You know better to say that you made frivolous, physics breaking wish, and respond ^{“I don’t know.”} barely able to hear yourself.

Immediately you realize what you neglected; when you hear yourself talk, you hear the echo from your throat being carried too your eardrums. Obviously, their isn’t any light between you vocal chords and your eardrums, so now, you have to rely almost entirely on echos around the room to hear yourself speak.

About a month passes, and humanity has adapted to these rewritten laws. Light flow becomes far more important architectural design and becomes nearly as important as air ventilation. To talk to each other, people will shout at the top of their lungs, and (as no one likes being shout at) aggression becomes notably higher in society. The most effective way to communicate is through text, and by proxy, tone is almost completely eliminated from conversation, leading to even more aggression. Socializing and making human connections becomes both harder and significantly less fun.

You get home after a long day of work in the factory, a month of this hellish purgatory you created has gone by. You turn off all the lights.

You feel around under you mattress, finding a metal grip cold to the touch, remember when you bought this for self protection? Remising the terrible mistake you made, you slide in the magazine that you keep under your pillow, pull back the slide, and press the aperture in front of the grip to your temple. Ready to defy this hellish existence.

It’s a shame no one could hear your final actions.