An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

“It’s beautiful and it’s powerful and someone devoted a huge piece of their life to it. The local news does a story about it and everyone goes “Neat!” and then tomorrow we forget about it in favor of some other ABSOLUTELY PERFECT AND REMARKABLE THING. That doesn’t make those things unwonderful or not unique…It’s just that there are a lot of people doing a lot of amazing things...” 

When April first sees Carl, she believes him is an art installation. She appreciates the devotion that goes into making something remarkable, and how many wonderful things go unnoticed. The remarkable nature of Carl foreshadows how otherworldly his presence turns out to be—not an art installation but actually an alien. 

“So that’s how I felt when I saw it—a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor […] It just stood there in the middle of the sidewalk, full of energy and power. It looked like it might, at any moment, turn and fix that empty, regal stare on me. But instead it just stood there, silent and almost scornful, like the world didn’t deserve its attention.” 

April personifies Carl despite believing he is an art installation. While such sculptures are often personified, the feeling that Carl is alive hints at his living presence. Carl embodies energy and power in both his appearance and presence as an extraterrestrial. 

“Being annoyed by carefully crafted internet personas was part of my carefully crafted internet persona.”

While April denies her investment in a social media identity, she realizes that even her annoyance counts as a carefully crafted internet persona. How she chooses to act online is a careful decision on how she would like to be seen by others. 

“The power that each of us has over complete strangers to make them feel terrible and frightened and weak is amazing.” 

As April gains popularity, she learns that even complete strangers can make one feel frightened and weak, and that this power is in itself amazing because of the existence of social media. 

“Much of the best art is about balancing between reflecting culture while simultaneously being removed from it and commenting on it.” 

Art cannot simply reflect culture; it comments on culture while being an outside entity. When Carl is believed to be an art installation, he reflects society’s fears and hopes while being removed from it. 

“Andy was into the spectacle of it. He believed in entertainment culture in a way I never have. There’s an appreciation that stretches beyond enjoying content and into worshipping all the bits that come together to make content. I still saw it mostly as a necessary chore. I wasn’t excited by any of it, but I was interested in what it could do for me.” 

Although entertainment can easily be seen for the fame and money it can offer, it also serves as a piece of art to be appreciated. The moving parts of entertainment culture can be appreciated in the way they come together, and how this process reveals entertainment to be both a reflection and commentary of society.

“When you’re faced with something you don’t understand, I think the most natural thing but also the least interesting thing you can be is afraid.” 

While on a late-night talk show, April talks about how natural it is to be afraid when facing something new. However, this fear is uninteresting—any other response would have more unique and fruitful results, especially if you have the courage to investigate.

“Most power just looks like an easier-than-average life. It’s so built in that people mostly don’t realize how powerful they are. Like, the average middle-class person in the US is one of the 3 percent richest people in the world. Thus, they’re probably one of the most powerful people in the world. But, to them, they feel completely average.” 

Power isn’t necessarily being famous or holding a prominent position in a government or organization. Power is relative in that the majority of average middle-class people in the US are the most powerful people on the planet. However, power is also relative for such people as they feel only average in comparison to those in close proximity to them. 

“It’s weird looking back on the little insignificant moments that completely change your life and maybe all of human history.” 

April retrospectively analyzes moments and decisions made in relation to the Carls and her fame. She realizes that even the smallest, insignificant choices change her life’s trajectory, and in the case of the Carls, the world. 

“I liked getting stopped for photos in the airport, I liked getting paid, I liked the attention, and I was worried about it ending. More than worried, honestly, I think deep down I was terrified. At some point that night, I glimpsed my most probable future. That one day, the most interesting and important thing about me would be a thing that I did a long time ago […] This is the reality I was fleeing from.”

April is addicted to fame and attention. Even when nearing the height of her fame, she thinks only of ways to make sure she never loses her popularity. She doesn’t want to become someone who once was famous; she wants to continue being a part of the narrative and stay important no matter the consequences. 

“But the one thing I didn’t anticipate was that, in creating the April May brand, I was very much creating a new me. You can only do so much pretending before you become the thing you’re pretending to be.” 

To make sure she doesn’t lose her fame, April thinks of herself as a tool rather than a person. She doesn’t realize at the time that it will change her forever. She reflects on the reality that you eventually become the thing you pretend to be. 

“Now I just like it, and the people are amazing, and from all over the world with different ideas and worldviews, all working together toward a common goal. It’s a pretty beautiful thing. In fact, you all should spend a little time in the Dream. Just look up one of the solved sequences on Wikipedia and go through it. It might give you a better appreciation for the Carls. I know it has for me.” 

When Maya shares her experience with the Dream, she explains the beauty of the experience and her appreciation for the Carls. The experience offered by the Dream requires collaboration from people of all parts of life, displaying a deep understanding of human culture and nature. Humanity is beautiful when vastly different people work together for a common goal, and the Carls seem to understand this. 

“What is reality except for the things that people universally experience the same way? The Dream, in that sense, was very, very real.”

While the Dream is only a dream, it can be categorized as reality if reality is defined as something universally experienced in the same way. The Dream becomes a reality because of its universal experience and because of how it inspires people to work together and see the best in each other. 

“So when you say something happens in your dream that doesn’t happen in anyone else’s, it is a mixture of extremely exciting and extremely frustrating. Exciting, because you and I are going to work on this mystery […] And frustrating because, good lord god almighty, I know that you are a good person, but the last thing you need is some other sign from heaven that you are special.” 

Though Maya is excited to work on a completely unique sequence, she is aware that April having this unique sequence is another sign that she is special. Already addicted to fame and attention, April has been in many situations that single her out from the rest of the world. Having a unique sequence is the last thing April’s already inflated ego needs. 

“It’s so much easier for people to get excited about disliking something that agreeing to like it. The circle jerk of mockery and self-congratulation was so intense I didn’t even notice I was at its center. It was so easy to get people to follow me, and in the end, that’s what I wanted. It took no time for me to be just as bad as Peter Petrawicki.” 

While April’s narrative starts out as wholesome and quirky, her hatred for Petrawicki takes her movement to a new level. People are more willing to dislike something that agree with someone, and she falls into the trap of argumentation and mockery without realizing that her methodology is no better than Petrawicki’s. 

“This new history is one in which the alien technology that we’ve come to know as the Carls allowed, hundreds, if not thousands, of people to die, and then, today, clearly and intentionally killed a man rather than allow harm to come to you.” 

When visiting her at the hospital, the president explains to April the significance of the moment they are in. The knowledge of Carl’s ability and choice to save April changes the narrative about Carl’s presence and April’s role in the situation. By saving April but allowing hundreds of others to die, Carl has expressed April’s importance in comparison to the rest of humanity. This can be understood in many ways—none of which are good for April or humanity’s dynamic with the Carls. 

“I could have absolutely punched myself in the face and looked up the system with Andy, but I wanted nothing more than to do this on my own. After months of people all over the world co-solving sequences, I wanted to be more than a vehicle through which this final sequence was solved; I wanted my name on that goddamn Wikipedia page!” 

When trying to solve the 767 sequence, April refuses to wake herself up and collaborate with Andy because of her selfish desire to solve it herself. Just as Maya predicts, April believes her unique sequence is another sign that she is special. She wants to receive the sole credit for solving the final, unique sequence to further prove her importance in the narrative.

“‘You hate that you were chosen by an alien race to be their envoy? That they think you’re special enough to give unique knowledge to, and to keep from being currently dead?’ She said this somewhat mockingly—like, of course I loved being special.”

Maya doesn’t buy it when April says she hates the insinuation that she has been chosen by the Carls to represent humanity. Maya mocks April’s addiction to being special—until this point, April has done nothing except maintain and increase her fame.  

“Until that moment, I had fully made up my mind to call the president as soon as we were sure we’d cracked it. […] I was tired of making big decisions and I was especially tired of screwing everything up when I made them. But now I was being told to do something else, and while I’d made up my mind what to do, it hadn’t stopped me from fantasizing about what might be waiting for me at the end of this road. My secret heart said that it was a face-to-face meeting with the intelligence behind the Carls […] The thought of that meeting happening between Carl and Peter Petrawicki […] made me angrier than any other thought I had ever had.” 

While April finally allows the president to make the final call and represent their community and humanity when possibly meeting the Carls\, her fantasy of what Carl might have in store takes over. She imagines that Carl may reward her in a way that would make her even more special. Her desire to meet Carl alone is fed by her addiction to attention, being special, and her jealousy and hatred for the possibility that Petrawicki might go in her place and come out as a winner. 

“You mass of humans who I know nothing about, you are my best friend [..] Because you like me, and no single person’s love can compete with even casual regard from a hundred million. That impossible, unhuman wave of support. Not inhuman because you aren’t humans, inhuman because no human is designed to process it, to understand it. Fame is a drug […] I was a bad person and I hurt a lot of the people who I care most about because I am addicted to attention. I do things that are bad for myself, and my friends, and my health, and my world so I can get more power because I think I need that power to do good things. But then I just do stupid things instead.” 

April calls herself out for her addiction to fame and her preference of the casual regard of millions over a single person’s love. She knows that such human support is inhuman because it is humanly impossible to process. As a final apology to those closest to her, she admits how fame harmed her relationships. April chases fame with the excuse that it could give her the power to do good things, while all it really did was feed her addiction and bad decisions.

“‘Humanity, what do you think of us?’’ ‘Beautiful,’ Carl replied. We sat inside of that moment for a very long time.” 

Just as Maya foreshadowed when describing her experience collaborating with people to solve Dream sequences, Carl admits that humanity is beautiful. Though not explicitly stated, the beauty that Carl has observes in human’s ability to work together in a way that highlights each individual’s unique skills and world views. 

“The truth slammed into me hard. Carl, or the Carls, or some related intelligence had stopped me from getting on that train. They had turned me around and sent me back, even going so far as to make sure I didn’t walk down the wrong side of 23rd. […] I stared up past Carl, realizing I was crying with the weight of it. There are billions of people on this planet. Literally nothing made me special.” 

When April learns that Carl explicitly chose her instead of any of the billions of people on the planet, she doesn’t feel as special or important as she would have expected. Her insecurities take over as the reality weighs down on her—there is nothing that makes her special enough for Carl to have chosen her instead of anyone else in the world.

“I don’t know what happened to April. But I do know that she was a person. She just wanted to tell a story that would bring people together. Maybe she didn’t do it perfectly every day, and she made so many mistakes, but I don’t think any of us are blameless when we all, more and more often, see ourselves not as members of a culture but as weapons in a war. Her message is clear to me—it will never leave me now. We are each individuals, but the far greater thing is that we are together, and if that isn’t protected and cherished, we are headed to a bad place.”

When Andy finally decides to speak in public after April’s death, he makes it his mission to share April’s true message. Despite her mistakes, she was a person, just like everyone else. Just as the Carls tried to teach through the Dream, April’s message from the very start is for people to value each other as individual parts of a collective whole and cherish this interconnected existence.