I entered a civic theater built over a cooling basin. The poster said PARTICIPATE IN YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE. Every seat had a small button: trust, doubt, gratitude, anxiety. Before the show, an usher walked the rows with a short-date stamp. He did not ask for a ticket. He asked whether your validity had been renewed.

On stage stood a declared synthetic actor, almost honest in its fiction: visible joints, clean voice, tutorial smile. It did not disturb me. It said openly, I am here to support the experience. Behind it, though, a hidden chorus sang no words, only ambient signals: measured murmurs, approval numbers, lights warming or cooling according to the trust that needed producing. If someone applauded, the ceiling multiplied it. If someone hissed, the sound came back as a well-phrased question.

Every time I pressed doubt, a new demo appeared. The actor thanked me, absorbed the gesture, improved the scene. Under the boards I heard water in pipes, transformers humming, a valve deciding who stayed powered and who did not. I asked who signed those choices. The actor pointed to the renewal desk.

There, clerks with wet hands wrote one cold line on every card: author of correction, date, reason, duration. The only non-theatrical writing in the building.

Then people from the neighborhood entered with rolled bills and half-empty bottles. The theater read them as participants. They did not react. They put the bottles before the stage and waited. The chorus lost time. The actor kept smiling, but without the chorus it was only a polite mannequin. Signatures surfaced from the wood like dead fish.