This is my final draft of my story Unplugged! Hope you enjoy 🙂
Day -1 – Prologue
“Lola! Get up you’re going to be late for school!” Lola’s mother yelled from downstairs.
“I’M COMING!” she screamed back, rolling over placing her phone on her nightside table. She yawned while looking for something to wear. If only she hadn’t stayed up until midnight the night before, saying just one more video. Oh well, what was done was done and she needed to focus on getting to school. Ooh, and on what she would wear today “Lola, I’m serious. The bus is coming in 5 minutes!”
“Yeah, yeah” she muttered under her breath while throwing her hair in a ponytail. Lola ran down the stairs and out of the door when she remembered. Her phone! Leaving her bread on the entrance bench Lola bolted upstairs grabbing her phone from where she left it on her nightside table. By the time she made it downstairs she could see the bus leaving, without her. Sheepishly she turned to her mom. She just knew that somehow this was getting turned into a lecture.
“I told you,” aha! She knew it “you need to be more prepared in the mornings”
“I know, I know! I just left my phone on my bedside table”
“You could have avoided this if you woke up earlier, I saw your lights on at 11:30 last night”
“Weird…” she feigned ignorance.
“You need to be more responsible with your phone you know, technology can be really addicting. You know I just want what’s best for you Lollie”
“Ok fine. Can we go to school now?” She couldn’t understand what her mom was talking about, a life without technology just seemed so sad. What would she have to look forward to everyday coming home from school, what would she do waiting in lines? Whatever, she was glad she never had to live life like that.
Day 0
The blaring is loud, high-pitched and unstopping. Lola had hardly gotten used to it even after it was tested multiple times. The noise continued while she made breakfast, threw on her clothes and even while she covered her ears and screamed into her pillow. Eventually she had to face this sound outside where it would inevitably grow louder until her ears split and bled, just like Tara Hazelton’s had just last week. She grabbed noise cancelling headphones, and braced herself for the sound outside. But it never came. In fact, the one blaring note had been completely replaced with words. Lola took off her headphones to listen to this announcement but was surprised when the words were at the same volume as the alarm.
‘Hello Citizens. This broadcast is here to inform you that due to a productivity decrease, the Government has decided to eliminate all digital technology including cellphones, computers and television for the next 30 days. They hope this leads to incredible things for this country and the world. Get your affairs in order because tomorrow, January 1st, 2050, will be our world’s first, Unplugging.’
The message was short and to the point, giving little time to process what had just been said. No technology? For 30 days? Lola couldn’t possibly understand, why would the government do this? Weren’t there any other solutions? Lola just knew there was something deeper behind this, and she was going to figure out what.
Day 1
She had heard rumours of The Unplugging but had never thought they were true, never thought the government would do such a thing. She tossed and turned in bed, not knowing what to do, was she supposed to stare at her wall? The worst part was the silence. The absence of the noise was worse than it’s blaring presence. Lola realized she had never heard her house be this quiet. To avoid turning on the bright overhead light, Lola grabbed her phone to turn on the flashlight… nothing. Her phone was completely pitch black she looked her alarm clock (an old-school one she found antiquing), squinting she read 12:31. Groaning in frustration she trudged out of bed and to her cupboard filled with her materials. If she wasn’t going to sleep she was at least going to do something productive. She was going to figure out what this ‘Unplugging’ even was, and she would need all of the supplies she could get.
At school everyone was talking about the unplugging. Lola leaned against the wall and listened to her friend Annie complain about her Snap streaks “You know, I had one that was 1000 days. Do you know the commitment that takes?” Lola winced. She could relate to her friends struggles. She had no clue what to do without her MacBook. Her gaze wandered to a room in the distance, one she hadn’t stepped foot in for years. It was a small door and the end of the hall, with nothing on it besides on gold nameplate ‘Library’.
No one dared enter her school’s small library. There were hundreds of rumours about the librarian and whether or not she ate children. Lola had even heard the books had curses and if you took one home you wouldn’t be seen the next morning. Yes the rumours were extreme but as Lola turned the library’s creaky door handle, she couldn’t help but wonder if they were true. Stepping into the dead silent library, Lola looked for any sign of life… nothing. She walked down the aisles and started checking out the books. Fiction… no, Romance… no, Thriller… as much as she wanted to look for the latest horror novel it was still a no, and that’s when she saw it, the History section, Bingo! She figured, if she wanted to know about the government today she needed to learn about them from the past. She looked past the history books about world wars and the history of a toothbrush to find exactly what she was looking for a thick boring history about her city and all of it’s extremely uninteresting history. She reached for the book on the shelf but when her hand met the thick cover it touched something cold and bony. Lola pulled back her hand and the book was snatched from the self. From between the sandwiching books Lola would see two light eyes and a wrinkly forehead. “You shouldn’t be looking here” the hoarse voice of the aforementioned librarian rung out through the silent room. “All history books are banned, courtesy of the government”. Lola scoffed, why would they want to forget history? “Sorry kid, wish I could do something about it”. Lola suddenly realized she had been standing perfectly still and silent.
“Yeah same” she hurried to exclaim. “Ok well, that’s too bad… um, thanks bye!” She started for the door when she heard the horse voice behind her
“Why did you want that book anyways? And don’t give me any excuse about a school project, because I know for fact teachers aren’t allowed to teach history now a days” Well, she had her there.
“I don’t know” she turned to face the librarian “I guess I was just… curious”. And with that she turned her heel and walked out of the library door. She would just need to try again another way.
Day 2
Lola had been spending every free moment of hers on this investigation. The nights were spent theorizing about the Unplugging and using her old detective kit to find clues of where to look next. She hadn’t done any kind of investigating since she was little, and this search was giving her an exhilarating feeling. She had forgotten how much she loved following clues and hunting for evidence. She had been sacrificing her sleep for these late nights of research and it was finally catching up to her. Yawning, Lola walked downstairs and started to make her breakfast.
“I actually think this ‘Unplugging’ might be a good thing for us!” Her mother was saying to her father who looked almost as much tired as her. “Look! Even Lola’s awake more than 10 minutes before her bus leaves”. Grunting in agreement Lola poured herself a bowl of cereal. “Lola you should be taking advantage of all of this time we have! Maybe get started on studying for your finals!”
“Mom, it’s January, finals are months away!” Plus, Lola didn’t have any free time at all. After school today she had a list of 20 local libraries to look for a historical record, of any kind. She would even take the history of rubber band balls at this point. The day before she had checked the Woodshire, Elemental, and Crestanal libraries which were the closest to her house, but she would have to pass Governmental Road to get to some of the other libraries on her list. Well for now she would just have to get to school and worry about the investigating later.
Day 7
It was officially one week of the Unplugging and Lola leaving the last reasonably accessible library on her list. The recent days had just flown by! She woke up, went to school and worked on her governmentally mandated workbooks and other classwork during her lunch. Then right after school she would rush on the bus to investigate a library. So far she had found an ancient history book on dinosaurs, a censored version of the history of the French revolution and a history on the world sandwich (which was only a few pages but pretty interesting) but not on anything closely related to the Unplugging! She was currently a few minutes’ walk from Governmental Road where all the top-secret government buildings resided and was tempted to see if she could find anything around the area, but the door was bolted with a 12-digit code that was highly confidential. She decided to just continue her walk past the street and to the nearest bus station. She still had 23 days of the Unplugging to create theories and continue investigating.
Day 10
Lola had been theorizing about the Unplugging late into the night again so, come morning she barely noticed the derangement of her kitchen. Pots and pans clattered on the floor and Lola stared in surprise.
“Hey sweetie” her mom said unconcerned “Can you pass me that jar?”
“What’s going on?” Lola said picking up a jar and handing it over
“You slept through the announcement? Surprising. I could hear that blaring noise from miles away! Anyways, the government is collecting jars from citizen’s houses apparently it’s for some kind of charity. Also, if you have any old batteries, not the triple A ones we use but the ones that we used before the massive technology update they want those too.” Weird… but Lola didn’t have time to think about that she had a board to create.
Day 15
Her ‘murder board’ as she called it was finally done. It held all of her evidence which… wasn’t much. There were pictures of the batteries and jars her mom had donated, a page of her governmentally mandated workbook which had a weird exercise where she had to write one sentence over and over again. Her parents had to start doing similar exercises at work, but they were acting like it was normal so maybe it was nothing… maybe this whole Unplugging thing was nothing… Lola had to stop thinking like that! She knew there was a deeper force at play, and she was going to find out what. All of her evidence was attached with red string to a bolded word in the middle of the board ‘WHY?’.
Day 20
It was Lola’s 5th time being in her school’s library at this point and she was sure she had checked every corner of the place. She was even sort of friendly with the school librarian which she never thought would happen. Today she wasn’t in through and Lola was checking the mystery section. A book caught her eye that hadn’t before titled ‘A Detective’s Guide’. It would be interesting to read even if it didn’t help Lola with her investigation it might even be better than that sandwich book which was the best of her library searching finds. Opening the book and flipping through the pages Lola realized there were notes written in the margins. Some were simple ‘Always wear black while investigating’ or, ‘leave no stone unturned’ some were longer and overlapped the text. One page in particular captured Lola’s attention ‘Following trails’ under this title wasn’t advice, it was a sequence of numbers (1221) and a word ‘Woodshire’.
Day 21
“It is just the craziest thing Annie!” Lola was hurriedly explaining to her friend. “I’m going on Saturday to check it out, I’ve been telling you there was something happening with the Unplugging now I finally have some sort of evidence”.
“Are you even sure it’s anything? Like it might be some kid writing in the book sending you on a wild goose chase. You know you’ve been telling everyone who will listen to you about your weird conspiracy theory, and like I believe you but talk like that might get you put… you know where. “Lola did in fact know where. The ‘Speaking Jail’ was a common rumour at their school about where people disappear to if they say too much. Tara Hazelton’s family was allegedly ‘moved’ there after they threatened to sue the government over the noise machine.
“You know that’s not going to happen Annie, the ‘Speaking Jail’ isn’t real” her friend hurriedly knocked three times on the table. By now Lola was used to her weird superstitions so it wasn’t odd she never wanted to say the words ‘Speaking Jail’.
“I’m just saying girl be careful! You don’t want to get into more trouble than you’re already in.” Lola was fine! She wasn’t in trouble but just to satisfy her friend she agreed
“Fine! I promise I’ll be careful”
Day 23
Lola was awake at the crack of dawn and dressed in all black. The investigation was just getting started.
Woodshire was the second library Lola had visited and it was the closest from her house, which meant she could leave the house and come back by the time her parents woke up. She was grateful it was Saturday and the first time in a while it wasn’t about the fact there was no school. Her parents had been staying up late the night before finishing their government mandated workbooks so she was sure she could sneak in and out unnoticed. Walking quickly down the street Lola tried to think of what the numbers could mean. Woodshire was pretty clear but 1221? What was she supposed to do with that? Reaching the library, she realized one very important thing… Woodshire doesn’t open until 10 am. With no phone flashlight, or normal flashlight for that matter Lola was stuck looking wistfully at the locked door and Woodshire sign. Squinting at the sign more closely Lola remembered the advice from page 39 of ‘A Detective’s Guide’ “Always look in plain sight, the best clues are hidden right where they are supposed to be”. She walked to the sign and when she reached it she flipped it around. On the back of the sign there was a note ‘Free library on Nottegndale, 4617”. She knew that street! It was the one beside Governmental. She was surprised there was a free library there, those had dwindled after The Technology Update and all books were easily accessible online. She started towards there; she would need to move quickly to finish this scavenger hunt by breakfast.
The free library was a broken-down birdhouse shaped box with only 3 lonely books. Opening the door, she could see them clearly ‘200 puzzles Sure to Cure your Boredom!’ a sudoku book that was missing it’s back cover, ‘The Dragon Woman’s Return’ a fantasy book that was bent from water damage and about 500 pages too long for Lola and the book farthest to the left, a hardcover that Lola had to grab and look at the title since it was angled backwards ‘THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY’. Eyes widening in surprise Lola opened the book. The first few chapters were simple enough, the industrial revolution, the first cellphone, but one chapter caught her attention ‘CONTROL OF TECHNOLOGY’
“Control of and in technology starts in the 2020’s with the popularization of short form social media content such as TikTok, YouTube and Instagram. These addictive videos control societies daily lives and cause loss of sleep and priorities. The platforms themselves are also controlled. The algorithm of these platforms are created for individuals and their interests and by paying companies to sell their products. The media we consume is controlled and engineered by the creators of these platforms. With this control we are becoming more and more addicted to these platforms which makes us depend on them in our daily lives. In a world without technology, we would struggle with there being no one to tell us what to do or what to believe in. This would make society lost and in need of guidance. In the way of control, technology is the problem but also the solution.”
Lola stared at the words in surprise, without them fully registering. Turning the page, she could see another set of words and numbers, but this time Lola had to read them again to confirm ‘Governmental Road, building 2, door 4, 5942’
“122146175942, 122146175942, 122146175942” Lola repeated the 12 digits over and over again under her breath “122146175942” on her way to the 2nd Governmental building.
1,2,2,1,4,6,1,7,5,9,4,2 Lola punched every digit slowly into the keypad. Suddenly the door clicked and unlocked. Hesitantly stepping into the room Lola remarqued a long hallway stretching farther than she could see. Suddenly her head started to spin, and she felt very faint. Squealing she met the floor and the world turned to black.
Day 24
Lola opened her eyes after what felt like both five minutes and 5 years. She slowly took in her surroundings. She was laying on a bench and she could see a small, barred window above her turning around Lola noticed cell bars and a locked door. She was in the Speaking Jail! She couldn’t believe her friend and half of her school were right. Looking around in disbelief Lola tried to make sense of this when she saw someone familiar in the cell across from her. It was her school’s librarian!
“Ms. D.?” She exclaimed in surprise “What are you doing here?”
“Lola!” she responded with little concern “I could ask you the same question”
“I was following a strange set of notes” Lola responded and waited for an answer from across the hall
“I guess I was sent here for a similar reason, sending a strange set of notes to a curious student of mine” she said to Lola winking. A smile of realization crossed Lola’s face. “But if you came this far you certainly can’t stop here!”
“I don’t know if you noticed but I’m quite literally stuck behind bars” Ms. D smiled and looked at Lola
“About that…” she said sliding her a key. “Now when you get out of here you need to follow my exact instructions, can you do that?”. Lola nodded grabbing the key through the bars. She was in trouble now…
Creaking passed the many filled cells of the ‘Speaking Jail’ Lola could see some familiar faces. No Tara Hazelton, but activists from the past Lola might heard of at her dinner table back when her family talked about the news. One woman who was looking down at the floor in her cell looked familiar, Lola thought her name might be Greta something, but she wasn’t sure. Another woman who stood out to Lola was looking wistfully out her window. She recognized her as someone who had fought for women’s education, maybe her mom had been talking about her when Lola was complaining about schoolwork. Most of the people in the ‘Speaking Jail’ (or you know where, as Annie liked to call it) looked hopeless and disassociated and Lola hated to remarque they were mostly women of colour. None of them even batted an eye as Lola passed. She continued down the halls and took a sharp left as her librarian advised her to. She turned into what appeared to be a training centre for guards, but it was eerily empty. She took 3 rights and another left before climbing up the stairs that lead her to a wall almost completely closed off except for one lonely door labeled ‘top secret don’t enter’. Lola tried the knob, and it was surprisingly unlocked. When she entered the room a chair turned around, and in the dark Lola heard a deep voice
“Lola Winters… I’ve been waiting for you.”
The man was seated on a tall chair and from the way the room was slanted he towered over Lola. From the way his legs dangled over the chair Lola could tell she had at least a head over him. He wore a scowl and a neatly trimmed moustache and was looking Lola straight in the eye. She hesitantly walked farther into the room. A blue light was reflecting onto the man’s face and Lola recognized it as the unfamiliar grow of a monitor screen. Scanning the room, she noticed hundreds of tiny surveillance screens of places around her town. She picked out Crestanal street and the free library she had just been to on Nottegndale.
Turning again she notices a red button ‘press for public announcement’, the announcing machine! Lola had always wondered how that worked. Looking at the man she noticed she hadn’t said anything, so Lola squeaked out
“You’ve been waiting?”
“Yes… We’ve been observing you and your outbursts.”
“They’re n-” Lola started
“Shhh” The man interrupted “Let’s let the adults do the talking for a bit” he said in a condescending tone that made Lola want to scream. “Your public ‘theories’ and questions are very… entertaining to watch from here Lola; but you must understand the terrifying affect they are having on our poor citizens. You see, these poor helpless people need control, they need their comforts and their commands and routine. You little girl are disrupting this routine.”
“Who even are you?! Why do YOU get to decide what we need!” Lola exclaimed a little too loudly. The man just chuckled deeply.
“I’m the one in charge of it all! If you have any curious questions about the Unplugging you should have just come to me. Then we wouldn’t be in such an awkward position”
“Ok, I have a question” The man laughed in that stupid way again and Lola barley stifled her eye roll
“A little late for that little lady-”
“Why?” it was Lola who interrupted the man this time and it took him a while to respond. Turning in his chair to stare at the wall of screens the man started talking
“Ok, I’ll tell you this only for one reason, you want to know the reason why?” he continued without giving Lola the chance to respond. “I like you Lola, you remind me of a younger dumber version of myself, but that’s not the reason. The reason is that there is an armed squad of soldiers outside the door right now and they are waiting for my command. You’ll get your little answer and then you’ll be brought somewhere far away where nobody will hear your ramblings. That’s what you wanted right? Your question to be answered? I bet it feels stupid now, sacrificing your perfectly well-off life for your curiosity to be scratched. But alas, I am a generous person and I’ve always wanted to explain my genius to someone. Too bad you won’t be around to discuss after”
“I’m still waiting for my answer” Lola pointed out.
“Of course, she’s committed people!” he exclaimed to no one. Getting out of his chair he started to pace “I make my money of your people’s stupidity” he said the words with disgust and a bit of excitement. “And before that meant selling them dumb things on social media but that was before I realized my full potential. Citizens are so useless, so lost and in need of guidance that if we took away the one thing that gave them purpose they would be extremely easy to control. Why do you think we gave those ‘governmentally mandated workbooks’ to you people, to fill your time with mindless tasks so you would be easier to control. We slowly created a perfected image of the government in your heads. You did the government simple favours, gave us jars, batteries, wrote ‘I love the government over and over again’ Who do you think came up with that exercise?” leaning in to whisper as if the answer wasn’t obvious the man said “It was me. That’s why we made the social media so addicting and that’s why we took it away. In the way of control, technology is the problem but also the solution”. The words sounded familiar to Lola and the man seemed to be able to read her mind as he started to smile. “You liked that book huh? THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY. You’ll never guess who wrote it” this time he didn’t state the obvious; Lola was dumbstruck “You know, we have more in common than you’d like to think Lola. I was once like you, dumb and naïve”
“What happened?”
“I grew up. I suggest it to you, it did me wonders” with that the man pressed a button and the door swung open only to find 5 solders… passed out on the floor blood dripping out of their ears.
“I guess I’m already more grown than you are since I outsmarted you”
“Um… what? why… HOW?” Lola lifted her finger from the public announcement button
“You should really keep this more covered. If a stupid little girl could use it against you then imagine what an army of stupid women could do” With that Lola pressed another button ‘prison release’ “Oops!” she giggled “Well I guess I have to get back to my perfectly well off life but… please! Enjoy the voices of the people you’ve silenced” She could already hear the ‘Speaking Jail’ prisoners making their way up the stairs as she headed back out through the door she faced the man “You should enjoy these moments of time it takes these prisoners to get up the stairs. They might be your last ones feeling in control” and with that Lola headed out the door to face the chaos she created
Day 60
Lola stared at the words on her laptop screen. With a click of her mouse her first post on her new internet blog was posted. She stared at the screen for a second before closing it to reflect on the events of the past month. After the spell had been broken, citizens from around the country started to revolt against the government causing a majority of the leaders to step down. Technology was restored 5 days earlier than the 30-day deadline but after her public announcement people were more conscious about how they used it. Lola’s family for an example were ‘Unplugging’ every September and January to focus on other aspects of live. Lola’s investigating continued and she hoped to keep her new blog filled with updates on upcoming cases. Without the controlling government, even her school’s library was thriving and filled with history books (including the history on the word sandwich that Lola had personally requested from the librarian) and they even kept THE COMPLETE HISTORY OF TECHNOLOGY and A Detective’s Guide in a special section named after Lola ‘Lola’s guide to starting a revolution’. Ms. D even said she would print out Lola’s first blog post and frame it in the display. Speaking of the post… she opened her laptop to check on it again. It already had 50 views! She stepped back to admire her work. Across the screen read the title:
“Technology, Time Waster or Life Saver?”
