Neverday

Thoughts

Outline

• Time is cool

Highlights

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The time loop has completely changed how our society works. We now live exclusively by our memories. You will still need to go to work in order to earn money because your bank account will change by the time you wake up tomorrow. There are people who have your financial information memorized when they go to sleep each night and update your bank account before you wake up in the morning. This was done so that everyone would still have a reason to work. Otherwise, society would shut down. No stores or restaurants would be open. Nobody would be running the city. It would be like the post-apocalypse each and every day. And, believe me, it’s not a world you want to live in.

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“Your memory isn’t infinite. You’ll forget more than you’ll learn.”

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“It is important to go to sleep at a reasonable time each night. The day does not reset for you until after you go to sleep, no matter what time that is.” The man with the sleeve tattoos asks, “What happens if you don’t go to sleep? I’m not a good sleeper. I’ve been able to stay awake for days at a time.” Mrs. Gray nods. “This is the most problematic part of our new society. It is possible to stay awake until April 18th or April 19thor even later than that. This is what we call the neverday. It is a false tomorrow. Anything that happens during this time will not be remembered by anyone, not even those who are awake. It is our most forbidden law to stay awake for longer than twenty-four hours after you wake up. Those who are caught breaking this law are punished most severely. And believe me, we’ll know if you do. Even though nobody will remember anything that you do during the neverday, we have methods for catching people who go there. So just don’t do it. We have a saying now: don’t stay awake too long. We say it instead of goodbye or goodnight. There’s nothing good that will come from staying awake.

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But January has no idea what’s so enjoyable about all of this. It feels like she just went through orientation explaining what life will be like on her first day in hell.

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Because he was alone, he didn’t have the opportunity to create anything out of his life. He’s kind of envious of the people who were able to create this new society while he was staying home and killing himself. He kind of regrets giving up on life all those thousands of rotations ago.

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I woke up with the worst fucking hangover of my life,” he says. “And I’ve been waking up with that hangover every day since.” He puts his face in his hands and shakes his head. “They say I’ll get used to it eventually but it’s not gotten any better. Every day, it seems to only get worse.”

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“Now that the day is repeating, I have no idea what to do with myself,” Lyle says. “I can’t finish the book I’ve been working on for the past five months. Every time I go to sleep, the words I write disappear. It’s frustrating as hell. The only books I’ll ever write are the ones that are already finished. Anything I do from now on won’t last. I’ll never be able to finish another book, no matter how long I live in this endless cycle.”

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Karl notices January covering her mouth and trying not let on that she’s giggling after Nick said killing yourself isn’t good for you. She seems to be the only one who sees the absurdity in that comment.

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“It’s nothing to laugh about. Suicide is a serious problem in our world now. There are people like Mr. Lybeck here, who use suicide to escape the monotony. There are people who kill themselves because they have problems like Tony, where they’re too sick or hungover or in too much pain to face each day. Depression is very common. There are also people who kill themselves just for the experience. It’s like a drug to them. There’s even some who see killing themselves as a sexual fetish. I know a man who pays women to choke him to death. There’s another man who is turned on by being stabbed. And a woman who likes to have her blood sucked out of her neck by men or other women pretending to be vampires.”

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the fact that dying is a possibility is what excites Karl more than anything. He’s lived for so long without the possibility of death that he knows how boring life can be without it. He likes that there could be consequences for his actions. He likes that his odds of survival are not very high. Because even if he dies in the end, the whole experience will be worthwhile. For him, death is a reward in itself.