Thomas shut down his laptop and found himself in darkness. He fumbled to the door, which opened to more darkness. And with the light switch, his sight was flooded white.
On his evening walk around the city, he grappled with the thoughts that always pursued him. He walked through crowds, and no-one saw him. He closed his eyes, and heard everyone. Rushing. Bustling. Ignoring. He should be better. He should be somewhere else. He was better than this; smarter than this. Why was he buried here?
Day in and day out. Coffee to have in and coffee to go. Rubbish out. Rubbish in — and so the wheel rolled. By day he worked with numbers; by night he dreamed of being understood. It was true, he was smarter than his everyday foray with numbers and city walks into oblivion. He saw patterns and logic and answers. Except, to his own monochrome.
He was an author of algorithms; the design of intelligence. He had written algorithms to learn from shopping trolleys (with overwhelming success). He had written algorithms to learn from his own mind (a resounding failure). He craved for understanding.
**
And so it was that one day he stumbled upon a bookstore on one of his evening walks, in search of understanding. And as he opened the bookstore door, he saw the room was filled with colour. A group had huddled in the corner, listening — mesmerised — to a woman in mid-tale. As he listened, she settled her gaze on him, and she concluded her story. And Thomas was enchanted, and seen, and returned to the bookstore every Thursday to drink more colour.
And as he listened, week in and week out, his sharp mind began to discern patterns. And he saw the way that people were mesmerised by the stories, and how the room was filled with colour. And he had an idea.
**
It was not so hard to build the machine. He based it on the programme he had previously built to anticipate what people might put in their shopping trolley.
But it took time, as it always does, to train the machine. He fed it, day in and day out, with care — feeding it all the stories and related reviews he could find. He even took some of the stories he had heard one Thursday at the bookshop. He made sure to provide a balanced diet; of romance, historical fiction, thrillers, epics, mysteries, sci-fi, fantasy, parodies and philosophy. Unknowingly, he taught it the nuances of pace and length; of the Hero’s Journey and three-dimensional characters; of surprise, creativity and understanding.
Several months, tests and megajoules of energy later, the machine told its first story. And as Thomas read it, in one sitting and through the shortest of nights, he experienced — in full technicolour — hope, fear, laughter and tears. Insight and pain, growth and understanding. Truly, this was the best story he had ever known.
He saw no need for editing or possibility for improvement and took it directly the next morning, without sleep, to the nearest publisher. And the bright-eyed publisher, Jackie, read it, in one sitting and through the shortest of nights, and was so moved that she agreed to an advance payment for its sequel and its immediate release.
“I have no words,” Jackie said, when she called Thomas back to her office. “You’ve come from nowhere. That was the best story I’ve ever read. It’s perfect. There’s nothing to edit.” And perplexed, as if to her personal diary, “I’ve never published a book without editing it.”
**
The next month was a whirlwind. The book, as you will have guessed, was a roaring success. It was released shortly before Christmas, and was the single most common request to Santa from children, despite the book being marketed to adults. Reviews flooded in: “Remarkable!” “Truly a book for the whole family.” “Such a refined first novel — here’s an author to look out for.” Plus, the expected cynicism: “Too good to be true?”
Thomas was invited, and Jackie eagerly joined at his request, to endless readings, book fairs and TV show appearances. He appeared on the 6 o’clock news, and was even summoned to Downing Street. How had he cracked the will of the people? His book had brought more civil cohesion that any other event (that was tangible) since the United Kingdom had left the European Union.
And so Thomas was invited to monthly meetings with the Prime Minister. Thomas was privy to confidential matters of national security and trade. And when he got home, he would tap in a few keywords for the biggest current issue, and the machine would write him a story.
**
The years passed, and Thomas became known across the land, and overseas — all around the world — for his stories. He became a national hero, his humble demeanour captivating the hearts of the people, and was knighted at the youthful age of thirty-six for his extraordinary contributions to society. And never did he let slip his secret of the machine.
And all this time, Jackie stood by his side, faithfully screening the press and managing his diary so as to give him creative space. The accidental discovery of Thomas, the awkward and shy stranger who had shown up early and red-eyed one morning, had changed her life. She pinched herself; why had he chosen her publishing house?
Yet despite his success, Thomas found himself more colourblind than ever, seeing life now only in shades of grey. Working with Jackie pained him; her endless enthusiasm waned him. He berated her for giving too much away, yet she felt indebted to his genius. Finding her presence increasingly unbearable, he retired to write, only to take long walks around the city.
**
Late one bitter winter evening, as Thomas paced around the city, he slipped on the ice and fell into the brightness. And he saw who he was, and who he had become, and how he was unable to love.
“Sir,” a soft voice roused him. “I know you, Sir.” As his eyes opened and sharpened their focus, he saw a face, unshaven, somehow familiar.
“I think you fell,” the stranger continued. “I don’t know when. Oh! You’re awake, you’ll be okay.” The stranger stayed with him, sharing his blankets and his warmth, and by the morning had not slept, having kept watch over Thomas. And Thomas broke down in tears, moved by the kindness of the stranger who had shared all he had to give.
**
When he arrived home around midday, he found Jackie waiting, visibly stressed by his absence since she had arrived that morning and relieved by his return. He saw her concern and her kindness, and resolved that he must tell her. And he told her all about the machine.
“What are you going to do?” Jackie whispered after a stunned silence.
Thomas spent the next three days and nights writing the story of his machine, of his intent to discover the secrets of storytelling, and his regret at not coming clean sooner. And Jackie sent the story to the national newspaper, which published it the next morning.
**
Thomas’ fall was softer than expected. His knighthood was revoked, but his revelation prompted more intrigue as to the power of machines than public judgement — he had, after all, designed the machine. It seemed that, for the public, it had always been about the stories. Indeed, after the revelation, sales of his stories spiked. But colour slowly began to return, and Jackie was set free.
**
Thomas left the city, with a backpack and his passport, to escape from the gossip of his fall and to seek solace in unknown places.
He travelled over seas and across deserts, through forests and metropolises. And he was confronted by his stories everywhere. From the bustling markets in Delhi and Cairo to Istanbul, he found the same characters and ideas — not just in his own stories, but permeating all the stories.
He found himself one day lost in a bookshop in Zanzibar, in the same way he became lost in bookshops everywhere he went.
“Are you looking for anything special?” An old man asked gently, “I see you have been here for quite some time.”
“Tell me,” Thomas answered, “what are the most popular stories here?”
The old man looked grave. He told him of the popular stories of his youth, of their colour and variety, and how all stories were now essentially the same.
“Our stories have been lost to global stories, and with it our language and our culture,” he reflected. He spoke with sadness about the tales he grew up with, and how they were no longer known by children. With the rise of machines, even languages had morphed. “Our words are gatekeepers to our understanding of the world,” he added. “When our words evolve to hold new, global meanings, our original understanding is lost.”
And Thomas felt, for the first time, the raw gravity and sheer scale of the knowledge lost.
**
But there was nothing Thomas could do to stop the unleashed momentum. (Was there, dear Reader?) Although his machine was retired, others elsewhere had built new machines. This had begun even before his revelation, because it was inevitable. And because it was inevitable, Thomas wondered, albeit fleetingly, if he had done the right thing by becoming honest to the world.
And so Thomas lived out his days in peaceful solitude, in a small cottage on the coast, where he spent his days reading the lost tales of old and evenings listening to the stories of the sea.
And all around the world, in different places and at different times, murmured a grassroots uprising of the reclamation of lost stories.