By Laurence Klavan

She knew the answer and typed the letters into the boxes. As ever, when you got the right word, the screen flashed red, then white, before settling into a beautiful, soft beige, a gentle giving of credit. And because the word today was long, additional, amusing effects were employed: a comic “ahooga” sound with puckered lips seeming to actually extend from the computer into the air. (When the word was wrong, there‘d be a glug-glug upchuck effect, followed by an animated chunk-filled splattering of the screen.) How’d they do that?! It was one of the reasons Kasha loved playing “Worldly” every morning on the newspaper site.

Kasha had been about to cancel her subscription — the news was always unbearable — when the game was added by the new owners. This was when everyone was most isolated and able to communicate only by phone or screen, with no real human contact. Newly single after a divorce and a very social person, Kasha had been in despair, secretly suicidal, being by herself. The game had been recommended to her by someone at the paper whom she’d apparently known in college but couldn’t remember, someone reaching out so as not to be so lonely herself. That contact led to other contacts and soon grew into a virtual neighborhood of people doing the puzzle every day, new friends in a benign competition for who’d be best or finish first. Today, Kasha bet it would be her.

Had “Worldly” saved her life? In a way. It was fitting that today’s word was “Community.” As the kissing sound continued, Kasha couldn’t wait to call the gang. 

***

A day later, Alvin heard kissing on the other end of the phone.

“Kiss kiss,” his mother said, as if to remind herself what the sounds meant, and then she hung up.

Alvin had been the sole support and roommate of his mother, who’d been addicted to alcohol, prescription sedatives, and criticising her unambitious son. Alvin had taken refuge in pornography, his own (illegal) drugs, and inventing puzzles he posted online. His deceptively simple guessing game, “Worldly,” had caught on everywhere, and its acquisition by a major newspaper was why he was here, in an airplane about to leave for Asia. It was the farthest distance he could imagine from his mother, whom he’d just placed in a no longer prohibitively expensive care facility. 

While Alvin had always hated corporations, bosses, and the consolidation of wealth, he’d been secretly thrilled by the offer, which was wildly generous and made by a new and unknown media conglomerate. After the windfall, he’d been determined to keep coming up with games, not to rest on his one accomplishment. Yet he admitted “Earthy” and “Global” were pale imitations of “Worldly,” and he abandoned them. Alvin was becoming more engaged by investing, buying real estate, and taking solitary foreign journeys like this one. Others saw his new situation as lonely, but he felt free for the very first time.

Alvin quickly finished that day’s “Worldly,” created by others and not as clever as his own, with those silly, excessive new sounds and visual effects. But really, who cared? He was tickled by today’s answer: “Individual.”

In the “Your Business” section of the plane, Alvin put on the VR headset, which allowed him to imagine being anywhere he wanted. He spun the dial to “Outer Space,” where he was utterly alone except for what life might exist and had yet to be discovered in the stars. Maybe, one day, someone rich would pay him to do that, too. With champagne, Alvin toasted himself: Look what a ‘nobody’ I am now, Ma!

***

A day later, looking out his thirty fifth floor window, Ty thought, wistfully: the office might as well have been in outer space. It was taking him a while to get used to city life; his original home had been small, quiet and isolated. Yet, after he’d been uprooted and installed as the new editor-in-chief, his superiors felt he had to set an example for in-office attendance. So, he’d been at the newspaper every day.

Ty turned from the view before the rising sun scorched his eyeballs. He had to hand it to his superiors: they’d taken a big swing, buying the paper when it was on the ropes (so many sports expressions! He’d been studying them, for he’d been told by his superiors to fit in and not act so alien). Their buying “Worldly” had been their biggest brainstorm, using their unique new analysis of human tastes and trends. Not to mention adding all those sound and visual effects, all those bells and whistles — another new expression! They were hypnotic, literally: it was already happening to people, Ty had heard.

Ty tried to finish that day’s puzzle but, as usual, only got so far. It would take time to increase his written vocabulary. Learning to speak the language on this new planet had been easier, and he could always fall back on just nodding and smiling. Besides, no puzzle answer would matter until the one that did. This would be after readers had been softened up, so to speak. The answer would use the crucial word to set it all in motion, seven letters, the highest score: “Obeying.” 

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