You’ve had a good time hiking through the woods, but it’s getting late. As you make your way back to your car, you arrive at a fork in the road that you don’t remember passing through. An old wooden sign sits in the intersection, an arrow pointing left and an arrow pointing right. On the left arrow in a scrawly font are the word “nothing is right”. On the other sign in the same font, the phrase “nothing is left” is written. The sun is going down, and you have to make a choice.
Today’s game is reminiscent of a would you rather question. It revolves around the quote “Where shall I go? To the left, where nothing is right? Or to the right, where nothing is left?” The way Traveler presented it (he writes the bold/italic intro segments) is interesting, as instead of being pulled out of whatever chaos you would be in already if the quote would stand alone, you are pushed into an alternate reality choice without your knowledge.
Allow me to explain the concept this quote is presenting. Firstly, the quote uses homonyms. While the first directional word in each line is used as implied, the second takes on it alternate meaning. “Where nothing is right” refers to a world where nothing is as it should be. In my mind, that would be a world where my parents don’t know me, everyone who I know thinks I’m a different person, my home is completely different, etc. “Where nothing is left” is a little more simple. It means your friends and family may flat out be gone.
He forgot to mention that he would analyze both sides in more detail below. Here it is now.
~Keeper
~ Left – Where nothing is right ~
Let’s say you go left. You get back to your home, finding that it is completely different from how you left it. The styles different, the color is different, even the street address is different, but you know for certain that it is yours. Depending on how late it is, some of us would be too tired to care, thinking that we were imagining all of it. When you wake up, however, the changes remain.
In this situation, I would circle the house a couple of times, maybe even ask a neighbor if I see one. It would take me awhile to comprehend what happened. Then I’d resort to asking people close to me for help. Of course, those people either don’t know me or see me as someone else.
There’s ambiguity in the statement “nothing is right”. Namely, the spectrum for just how “not right” everything is unexplained. For instance, the word could refer to moral correctness instead of mere alterations to the norm that I described above. This world would be complete anarchy, a kill or be killed society where no one can be trusted and your life is in danger at every turn. Walking into this reality blindly would get you murdered if you weren’t incredibly observant. On the other hand, it could be as simple as everyone you know sees you in a different way. Not completely out of touch or altered, but not quite right.
~ Right – Where nothing is left ~
Let’s say you go right. You reach the end of the forest to find an empty street. You were sure you parked your car somewhere around here. You try to hail another car, but no one comes. Feeling defeated, you trudge on home. It becomes increasingly obvious that things are missing. When you arrive at the place your house should stand, you find an empty slab of concrete. Looking around, you can tell your house isn’t the only thing that’s mysteriously absent.
In this situation, I’d probably run around in a panic trying to find others, ask them what happened. Unlike the “Last Person on Earth” hypothetical, there are a couple of people still around, but they don’t remember anything or anyone that is missing. It’s like an episode of Eureka I watched recently. In “Games People Play” (like this one), Jack finds that people around him are disappearing one by one, and he’s the only one who remembers. (No spoilers for how this is resolved. Go watch it for yourself. It’s a good show.) This world works in a similar way, but instead of people popping out one by one, objects and people are already gone when you arrive.
The logical extreme of the phrase “nothing is left” is a void world. Absolutely nothing, leading to the death of those who enter. That’s not suitable for this game though. It comes down to a few options. You could honor the term “nothing”, just modifying physics to allow for the survival of those inside. It could be that the sign only refers to you, the one making the choice, taking away everything you’ve ever loved and cared for. It could be completely random, certain elements are missing, pieces from the original that are absent from the copy.
~ Options ~
Some of you may have noticed that I never directly stated what was down each path, though I made several hypotheses as to what could lie there. If you reach a split in the path forcing you to choose solely based on the initial quote, there is no way of knowing the final outcome of either choice. These are my guesses, theories as to the type of world you’d be walking into given your decision, but no single one of them is a definitive answer.
I’m curious as to how many of you would just pick a path, thinking the sign just a mere joke? Honestly, I’d laugh to myself about how silly it would be, then walk down whichever path I thought could get me going in the right direction. Perhaps remember this post as I do. But never seriously consider it to be real.
All that aside, if you knew in advance of the potential horrors of each path, you have two options. Well, more like four options. You could go…
- Left, where nothing is right.
- Right, where nothing is left.
- Back, remaining lost in indecision.
- Straight, off the path but unchanging in directing.
Going back is not, in my opinion, the right answer. Based on the nature of this hypothetical, the phrase would be “go back, where nothing is resolved”. You’d be lost in the forest forever, or until you make a choice and choose a path. Or… “Go straight, where nothing is changed.” A straight line suggests no change to the path. Wouldn’t that imply that your world would not change either, even if that laid path isn’t there? I think it would.
But what do you think? Which would you choose, if you only had left or right? What are your theories on the destinations of each path? Have you thought of any other ways to mitigate the choice altogether, or do you think my method would hold?
I can’t wait to hear what you have to say. Thanks for playing.
The Hypothetical Game 