Dear Anonymous Third Worldling,
Hello, I am a Controller. My number is 2478. I don’t have an age, but I would probably be 160 years old, as I have been a Controller for over 87 years, and I speculate I expired as a character after about 70 years. I’m exhausted being a Controller. Everything is a routine. Small things do happen along the way, but they’re all insignificant. Being a Controller isn’t a laborious job; it’s just that I’ve been at it for over 87 years. Most Controllers resign after about 70 years of service, but I wanted to take things slowly and try to recollect myself as a First Worldling character there on the monitor screen. However, I don’t recall anything, which is why I can’t even feel depressed or confused that my previous life wasn’t mine, because I don’t have anything I can hang onto. I’m sick of feeling lost and humiliated at having to control characters that won’t even remember their lives. I want to move on being a Third Worldling.
I’m guessing most of these letters would ask questions like “What is life like as a Third Worldling?” or “Are we Second Worldlings being controlled as well?” But I want to ask you something different: Will I remember my life as a Controller there?
I want to remember this place as much as I want to remember the last place, because I know that as our monitor chip is inserted into new lives, we lose one thing at a time, until the chip contains nothing but an empty soul. I want to remember myself with the attributes I will have lost next time.
-Number 2478
Dear Controller 2478,
Hello, my name is Lauren Schmidt. I have to say, this letter was quite a shock for me. I never receive anything like this before, and I’m sure no one has. I think there has been some confusion. Please make yourself clearer.
However, I will tell you a bit about myself just in case you have been writing to the wrong person. I was born in Las Vegas but I currently live in Michigan. I am 36 years old, and am married to Gary Schmidt. I am a professional geologist.
If this is a joke, please do not send these anymore to anyone. It is not funny. However, I will happily answer your question. No, I don’t remember anything about Second Worldlings, or First Worldlings, or Whatever Worldlings, thank you.
Have a nice day.
-Lauren Schmidt
Dear Third Worldling,
I do not understand, because your descriptions are of character Lauren, the one my neighbor number 2479 controls. There must perhaps be a misunderstanding. I assume you must be recollecting your life as a First Worldling. Although I did not receive the answer I wanted, I am rejoiced to hear that Third Worldlings remember life as First Worldlings.
In appreciation, I have attached a photo of the face of what my chip is inserted in. This was taken after my character expired and the Technicians were removing my chip from the monitor.
-Number 2478
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Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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Original Text:
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125,009 Literary Works • 672,839 Reviews
I really like some of the ideas in here, especially suggesting that the lives we lead in this world are not the first or the last that we have lead, but there are some things I would suggest keeping in mind for further writing.
First of all, although I'm aware that 'Controller' has a new meaning in the context of the story, I would advise against capitalising it. It's something of a cliché in sci-fi works to dangle capitalised words with unknown meanings in front of the reader, and I thing taking the capital letter away from 'Controller', 'Worldling' and the like will make them feel more quietly mysterious than annoyingly coy.
Secondly, in this story it seems very important that Lauren and Controller 2478 should have radically different writing styles, but I'm not sure that this is achieved enough. They both have quite similar, stoic-ish writing styles. I think a better difference could be achieved if you exaggerated 2478's slightly robotic style, for example making him quote his time as a controller in exact years, days and minutes. Lauren could have used a bit of slang, maybe even some text speak, or just generally tried to use a more natural tone.
Please don't thing I'm saying your work is bad, I'm just suggesting ways I think it could be even better.
Viva la reviewlution!
Haha, awesome! Can't wait to read more (which I hope is coming?). Love the details (Gary Schmidt, professional geologist) and how short and pithy the letters are without seeming unnatural (or at least, unnatural for a Second Worldling, anyway). Definitely reminded me of "Brave New World", with its alphas and epsilons and so on. I didn't like when Number 2478 says he/she/it "can't even feel depressed" about being unable to remember the previous life, because even though they can't remember it they clearly DO feel upset about it. (And "depressed" is just one of those words that seems so specific to our therapy-addicted time period right now... I generally avoid the word because it seems a cop-out.)
Great stuff, very funny, and I hope there's more!
Just wondering because of the terminology in here: have you read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."? This reminded me of it a lot and that's one of my favorite novels.
No, I don't think so, but I hope I get a chance to read it next time!
Interesting, I must say. This was very interesting!
) seemed really cool, and you wrote this nicely. Lauren sounded like she was totally confuzzled and 2478 seemed like he knew what he was doing and he was from a different world. And he mentioned he was 160 years old... So...
I love this! I'm a little confused, but still. This Number 2478 android person thing (I have no clue,
This was a great introduction to science fiction! You can almost tell from the starting what this genre is (you don't have to know immedietly, of course), so cool!
I didn't find any spelling or grammatical errors, so obviously you either edited this through or typed slowly to make sure what you put down was correct.
Sorry if this didn't really help, there just wasn't much to point out! Good job!
~ WillowPaw1
Thanks a lot! This meant a lot for me
Dude. Dude.
I can't even right now xD I'm laughing so hard.
By the first letter, I assumed this would be a serious story, a tale of a poor First Worldling and its desire to become a Third Worldling, and then Lauren sends her letter back and I'm too busy laughing to function for a moment. If you didn't mean for this to be humorous, then I say you keep this as it is because it's awesome.
I want to say that you should've included more background explanation, like what the heck a First/Second/Third Worldling is, but doing so would have been hard, because why would 2478 include that information in the letter? It already assumes the Third Worldling knows, so including that in such a random place would've been weird.
Really, I'm not sure I can critique this. It was really well written, and I love how awkward and computerlike 2478 sounds, and how normal and weirded out Lauren sounds xD This was awesome, and I loved the image at the end. Overall, a nicely done job!
Haha yes it was kind of supposed to be humorous. This meant a lot for me, thanks a bunch!