193. Life with Enhanced Hearing

Those who have lived with enhanced hearing for a significant length of time often learn to gauge their surroundings from background noise. They have an intuitive sense of the mood of a city based upon the amassed infrasound produced by daily activity. They also have improved situational awareness, keeping track of everyone around them and learning to identify others based on the noises they make.

In many circles you have to have enhanced hearing to be considered a real music-lover. A great deal of the best and most interesting music being takes place in registers requiring enhanced hearing to really appreciate. Even old music, played live on real instruments, often sometimes gains new depths as high or low frequency sounds, previously unheard, are found to produce unintended patterns. Recorded music however, unless specifically recorded with enhanced hearing in mind, sounds oddly limited, like a black and white image.

Those deprived of enhanced hearing feel as though the world has been muffled, and often develop anxiety related to reduced situational awareness.