The world was never the same again. Peple began using fiive lettr words onnly. Numerologists liked to jiggle their ‘Told-you-so’ (middle) fingers. Dreams were riddled with little green blocks and nightmares with tanked guesses.
The army doubled daily. A tumble of green boxes replaced HBD wishes on friend groups. Show off your score or risk social debacle! Enormous bribes were paid to reveal a humble skill, still, swill or spill. Credit cards and food delivery apps were usable only by those with a 3-guess track record. Kaun Banega Scorepati ruled reality TV while Vowel Movement won India’s Gut Talent. Marriages were peddled strictly within the same score-caste. But even these marriages tended to crumble when one desperate partner cheated with Google.
The bells tolled when the NYTimes got onto the saddle and Josh Wardle toddled off into the sunset with his neat bundle. Parrots and prophets babbled that the bubble would burst. The stock market gambled on it. But it wordled on, untroubled.
That miracle sum of greenbacks for green blocks instantly turned every other app-maker green. Spinoffs spun off: Nerdle for math-heads, Quordle for multitaskers and Lewdle for those who preferred four-lettered words to five.
Soon, By-invite-only clubs sprang up. Curdle for those who couldn’t cook, Swaddle for mama’s boys and Forwordle for those addicted to forwarding forwards. Sadly, when they tried to forward the invite, they were banished to being one of the Herdle again, all their pleadles in vain.
Kiddle and Coddle, the first babies born to the Wordlers, emerged disappointingly wordless.
The corporate world was in big trouble. Board members spent meetings secretly playing Boardle while the others had to Boredle. Employees who couldn’t handle the pace were fired and threatened Murdle. In fact, lawsuits were as profitable as vowels. Waddle was sued for being body-sizeist, Middle for being anti first and last-borns, Twiddle for causing tendonitis of the thumb, Poodle for being too confusing for other dogs to do. Huddle was permitted with masks on, but Cuddle and Piddle were banned outright from public spaces.
Thirdle was the app that got gobbled up for billions finally. At any one time, one-third of the exhausted population, whose eyes had turned into black blocks, had to hobble to bed, where Thirdle pummelled them with guesses through the night, till their brains were adequately addled.
Where the writer, the author of Happily Never After, talks about the world’s quirks, quacks and hacks
