There was a time when progress had a sound.
Engines thudded, furnaces roared, and the air itself testified to human ambition.
You could see the factories that drank the rivers,
and hear the work that powered nations.

Now, our industry hums behind walls of silence.
The servers drink the same rivers — quietly, invisibly.
Data centres bloom where mills once stood,
drawing more water and power than any foundry before them.

We traded smoke for signal, steel for silicon.
But every click, every cloud, every spark of stored light
still burns through energy, still drinks from the deep.
Only now, the noise is gone — and so is the witness.

The modern world is efficient, immaculate, and quietly consuming.
Perhaps the next revolution will not be digital or mechanical,
but visible again — one that lets us see the flow of water and power,
and reminds us that progress is meant to serve life, not drain it.