It was all good until the tutor needed a cigarette

November 30, 2006 9:54 AM

I read a short story a few years ago and would really like to find it again. A boy doesn't understand the complexities of the world -- such as how cars work. Suddenly, cars stop working.

As he tries to figure out technologies and fails, the world loses them. So he is sequestered to a cottage in the country (the setting was Great Britain, I believe) with two tutors to teach him how basic things work so that the world could regain its lost technologies.

As long as he doesn't consider a technology, it is safe. So the tutors walk a fine line trying to keep him from pondering how people breathe or how fire works.

It was a fantastic story, even if I mangled the synopsis. The thing is, I may have read this while in an online writing group, so the author may have never published it anywhere. But it was so good I'm assuming it was. Does this sound familiar to anyone?

posted by Terminal Verbosity to media & arts (2 answers total)

I think that there was a perhaps quite similar story featured in Tesseracts⁷. Unfortunately, the book is at home so I have only my vague memory of the story to draw on.

In it are two brothers who live in a hut on the coast because if they go near technology they get too intensely curious about it and it stops working. They get bored of living in seclusion and decide to go to the city, of course to disastrous effect. I think the affliction is hereditary and some of their relatives may have had it as well. The story ends with them back in their hut on the beach, watching a television that isn't plugged into anything.
posted by Kwirq at 10:12 AM on November 30, 2006

You would probably have better luck asking the BookSleuth folks. Let us know what you find. I'd love to read it!
posted by Sufi at 6:09 PM on December 2, 2006