This is one story that requires a little preface. Lately, I've really been wanting to write a novella or an anthology or just about anything long enough to publish and ask money for without garnering reviews of "It was nice but it was kinda short and I paid money for it one star do not recommend". I had one decent idea going, but I hit a wall with it and it's been on the backburner for a while, because I can't see it going anywhere fast.
All of my other ideas would take way too long. What I need is to have enough money to move out the second I turn eighteen, and the sooner I can publish something of decent quality, the sooner I can get going on that, so that's why I want to write a novella.
Anyways, this is a complete rehash of a story I posted a while ago called Perspective; in fact, the last 600 words or so are almost entirely copy-and-pasted from Perspective. The difference between that and this is that TTOAIW takes place in a fully human world and only travels through a galaxy, whereas Perspective takes place in multiple planes of existence, the lowest of which(that receives major attention, anyways) is three planes higher than our own.
What I'm trying to figure out is whether the human or inhuman approach is the best for this story. So what will follow is a human version of the aforementioned Perspective, plot point by plot point. If you have the time and are willing to give your thoughts, please read the first one here and then come back to read this.
If you only read this one, any thoughts or comments you have are appreciated nonetheless!
***
Long ago, I'm sure there would've been some people who'd kill to be in my position. I am paid to do nothing but write. About what, you ask? Anything. Anything that comes to mind is fair game. I am only to write.
Thinking about it a bit further, my life would actually be quite ideal if it had stopped, say, a hundred and fifty years ago or so. After all, nothing lasts forever, and eventually, the thrill of exercising such creative freedom waned away, like it did for all of the other Creatives trapped with me.
We sit at out typewriters for fifteen hours a day; we have three twenty-minute eating breaks evenly spaced out; and we have four hours to sleep. Whether or not we manage to sleep during those paltry hours is of no concern to the Overlords who watch over us.
I cannot feel my fingers, nor do I need to. They have memorized the location of every key quite nicely and require no conscious input at this point; I think of a word and it is typed, no more, no less.
In this regard, among many others, I'm quite ordinary. Only a decade or so ago was The Great Talent Culling, where all Creatives who had to stop and think about the way they typed were executed. Now, any new Creatives have only a short period of twenty years to develop this shortcut; if they fail, they are executed.
The Overlords have no use for inefficient or unproductive Creatives. If a Creative falls ill and fails to recover in a day, they are executed. If they have too many similar ideas, they are executed. If for any reason they stop typing altogether for a period of two hours or more, they are executed.
It sounds so easy to die, doesn't it? Make one little mistake and you're gone. You're free. All it takes is a little defiance.
However, if you've been paying even a lick of attention, you'll notice that I said 'I think of a word and it is typed'. This applies to every word I think of. So any thoughts of "My god, this is boring" or "I wonder if there's an afterlife" or "Is the executioner an Overlord, a defunct Creative, or an entirely new Occupation" are typed, thus breaking my streak and keeping me alive.
Every few years, I make another attempt to stop. I always fail, and I always go back to being the reliable little Creative I always was and always will be if I continue to be such a massive fuck-up.
I've been around almost since the very beginning, only a few months after Project Creativity was launched. The Overlords were such open and trusting fools; any Creative could claim that they were out of ideas and be given a fast, merciful death. Hell, they even told us the purpose of our existence and genuinely expected us to be happy about it.
Even stranger, we were.
Nowadays, we are forbidden to speak of our purpose among each other in case the newer Creatives become disillusioned by it, but we were artificially conceived to be nonstop idea machines, churning out stories and essays and ideas for cults and blueberry cheesecake recipes and all sorts of things that bored Citizens would eat right up. We exist to entertain them and that is all.
Luckily for the Overlords, Citizens are very easily entertained, which is why such liberty with our content is allowed even to this day. There will always be someone who will read and enjoy whatever drivel is shoved in their faces and called entertainment.
Why we must entertain them, we were never told and nobody ever bothered to even come up with a theory for it, and since that is tied directly to our purpose, we are unable to discuss it anymore. If I remember correctly, the Citizens are under the rule of the Overlords just as we are; they run like clockwork, with their own diverse and petty roles in a meaningless society, and there's no reason they couldn't just put some Citizens in charge of writing instead of breeding writers.
Still, considering how much stricter the Overlords get each year, I doubt we'll ever know the answer.
We're lucky to still have questioning privileges when they come by for a monthly pep-talk. They tell us we must work for the good of the world, then three randomly selected Creatives are given half an hour to decide on a yes-or-no question to ask the Overlords. They are isolated from the other Creatives. If a chosen Creative attempts to communicate with a non-chosen, the chosen is executed and no question is asked; however, if a non-chosen attempts to communicate with a chosen, the non-chosen is executed and a question can still be asked. If they fail to decide on a question in thirty minutes, no question is asked, but the chosen face no punishment.
So far, the questions have been: “Will we be having a Taco Tuesday this month?”(no), “Will we ever be freed while still alive?”(no), “In the foreseeable future, will we ever be told why we’re here?”(no), “What’s your favorite color?”(that’s not a yes or no question; you three are to be executed at second break), “Do you ever get tired of being assholes?”(no), and “Will you say no to this question?”(you three are to be executed immediately).
As it turns out, a lot more groups take their sweet time deciding than you would guess, even though they have nothing to lose by asking just about anything(as long as it's yes-or-no and not a paradox).
This time around, I was one of the chosen. Upon learning this, I felt a sudden apathy towards the task at hand, possibly out of rebellion, possibly out of momentary mental retardation.
“I’m hungry,” the slightly taller one said. “We should ask if we’ll be having Wing Wednesday this month.”
“We should ask if they know the meaning of life,” the slightly shorter one said. “I bet they’ve never thought about it before; the question will eat them up inside, I just know it.”
“Eating sounds good. We should ask if we’ll be having Thuringian Sausage Thursday.”
“You’re both idiots and I hate you,” I said. I didn’t really mean it, but I had never said it to anyone before and was curious to see what reactions it might elicit.
“Don’t worry, friend,” the shorter one purred, reaching out to touch my arm. “I understand that it may seem confusing to think about such massive things, but someday you’ll get over that petty hatred of yours.”
“Consumption sounds good. We should ask if we’ll be having Surstromming Sunday this month.”
“Well, I didn’t really mean what I said in your case, Shorter One, but I do believe I’m beginning to hate Taller One. Can’t you talk about something that isn’t food?”
The shorter one laughed and reached out to touch my other arm. At this point, I was feeling quite uncomfortable and could only think about getting away from him when it suddenly hit me.
“We should ask if there’s a way to escape,” I declared confidently.
“That’s all well and good, but I’m still not sure if we’ll be having Marmite Monday this month. I believe that’s a much more urgent issue.”
“Say, Short One, would you happen to know what the punishment is for killing a fellow Creative?”
“Let me think about it.” He withdrew both of his hands and placed them underneath his lip in deep thought. “I believe it’s execution.”
“I see. What about hitting a fellow Creative?”
“I believe that would also get you executed.”
“I see. How could I harm him without being executed?”
“By escaping before you’re caught, I think.”
“I see.”
We were all silent for a good moment.
“So,” I said, “what do you all think of my question?”
“I think it’s a very good question and we should ask it,” the shorter one said eagerly.
The taller one raised his hand in protest. “I think--”
“Then it’s settled,” the shorter one said. “We’ll ask them if it’s possible to escape.”
We shuffled to the stage where the three visiting Overlords stood, tracking our every move with ever-so-slightly inhuman precision and speed.
In a low and monotone voice, the one in the middle said, “What question have you decided to ask?”
“Is there any way to escape this place?” I asked.
The three Overlords looked at each other, then looked back at us, giving us disapproving glares, then went back to looking at each other, until they finally looked at us again.
“Yes,” one said, and with that, they dissolved, teleporting instantaneously to their headquarters.