ShmoopTube

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Brave New World, a la Shmoop. My name’s John, and I’ve always been a

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little… different. At first, it was my skin color. I grew up

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on a savage reservation and, well, when you’re white…

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…I guess they associate you with those guys who keep flying in to ogle them like zoo animals.

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This is the year 2540. Most people live in a magical, fantastical future-land…

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…where babies are born in factories, grow up in strict social castes…

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… and take happy drugs and have tons of sex so that they don’t have to think about

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how much their lives suck.

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I mean really, these people are a perfect anti-drug and sex campaign. They make pills

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and orgies look totally unappealing.

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I was supposed to be one of these future folk, but my mom got lost on a weekend getaway from

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civilized land.

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Then my useless dad left her there, and… well, it turns out she was pregnant with me.

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One day, my life changed completely.

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We get a visitor from the civilized world that’s not a total robot.

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His name’s Bernard, and he’s like me. A little… different.

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Nobody likes me because I’m white, nobody likes him because he wants to actually fall

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in love. When Bernard finds me, he realizes that my

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mom’s story sounds awfully familiar.

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Turns out his jerk director lost his lady on a savage reservation years ago.

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So Bernard decided to bring his boss back a little souvenir….

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…in the shape of an abandoned son.

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Surprise!

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See, I’m a huge no-no in civilized land because you’re not supposed to feel love

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and have sex and create your own little bundles of joy… like me.

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That would be savage. So now it’s happily ever after, right? My

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mom and I have been freed from the savage world, Bernard has been freed from his sucky

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boss… ….but hold up. Turns out it’s not all

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that easy in civilized-land.

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The whole bringing-down-the-big-boss incident makes Bernard so popular that he becomes a

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fame-hungry zombie… …Oh, and even in the civilized world they

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can’t get rid of girl trouble.

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See, I was in love with Bernard’s friend, Lenina...

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But she was very…forward.

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She really wanted to, uh…love me.

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Right away.

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Like, NOW. But while I could see how screwed up everything

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was, all the civilized folks were out in Happy-Loopy-Space-Ville drugged out on their escape mechanism of choice…

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soma.

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Including my mom.

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And she kept not living her life… until she died.

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They don’t have families here. Nobody understood why I cared when she died. They were all sliding

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down rainbows or riding unicorns or something.

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And boy, they were not happy when I dumped their supply of magic drugs out the window.

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At this point I was getting pretty fed up with the civilized world.

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I ran away to live in an abandoned lighthouse where I could be a miserable hermit.

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My routine in the lighthouse went something like this:

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Wake up. Don’t shower. Don’t eat breakfast. Violently flog yourself. Check to see if self-abuse

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has lessened burning desire for Lenina. Repeat as needed.

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But man, these future-people will not leave a guy alone!

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It’s like, as soon as you decide to do things a little differently from the pack, you involuntarily

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sign on to be your own reality TV show…

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…like The Bachelor, only with more guilt and self-loathing.

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When everyone started watching, they turned my flogging into exactly the opposite of what

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it was: sexy.

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Lenina came by and I was so mad I started flogging her…

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…and then they started flogging each other, one thing led to another aaaaand…

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…giant orgy. The next day when I woke up and remembered

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what had happened the night before, I couldn’t live with myself anymore.

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The future isn’t always bright.

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