Duolingotti

[nyctalops]

In this hypothetical short story, a man learns a new language with the famous app. Originally prompted to do so so that he can tackle some of his favorite literature in the original language, the further he progresses in his learning, the deeper he sinks in a state of despondency. Years in, he realizes the unattainability of his goal, but furthermore, the pointlessness of it all. Every encouragement from the merry green owl is but a slap in his face, only to perpetuate the existence of the company and the intricate network of interconnected misery it has grown into, from which it cannot withdraw.
He stops practicing. The merry green owl gets sad and lets him know. A few cries for help lead to nothing. Colleagues send him memes of the merry green owl as an assassin who will take his wife and kids for having stopped practicing.
One night after work, the man comes back home and has a chat with his wife. It is eerily quiet and cold, as if someone had left a window open. The man climbs upstairs to check on his daughter. He does not find her. She certainly had supper with her mother not so long ago.
On the floor, inside a stuffed owl, the man finds a note in a foreign language. "Is everything alright?" he hears his wife inquire from the bottom of the stairs.
The note says "...for in the black-foaming gutters and back alley of paradise, in the dank windowless gloom of some intergallactic cellar, in the hollow pearly whorls found in sewerlike seas, in starless cities of insanity, and in their slums... my awestruck little owl and I have gone frolicking." But the man does not understand.

[lone_ichabod]

Ideas


Duo the Owl progressively makes the protag translate more and more disturbing texts, including quotations from Zapffe and Mainlander.


Also, make the letter finish with "looks like you missed your lesson today."