The shortest horror story and aliens

[MrDibble]

IMO, of course: Being alone in the Universe would be more terrifying than not, because it would mean there was something wrong with our knowledge of how the Universe works - either our theories of the origin of life, or evolution, or basic chemistry or something would be incomplete or mistaken. Not being alone isn’t terrifying, it’s expected.

The knock is more terrifying than the lock, because the lock implies the occupant know why it’s there - either he’s in a cage or a castle, but he knows. Whereas the knock…that’s the unknown (Brown’s story notwithstanding, only going by the general formulation such as first put out by Aldrich)

[kaylasdad99]

@crowmanyclouds

For your reading pleasure “Knock” by Fredric Brown.

CMC fnord!

Thank you. Good story.

[Zyanthia]

Thank you. I enjoyed the story, and I thought this line was brilliant.

[RobotVoice]
“It is not necessary to repeat information which is correct in the original statement.”
[/RobotVoice]

But to address the original question, I don’t find either statement terrifying. I find them equally fascinating though.

[msmith537]

@Mr.Kobayashi

While we’re talking terror in short packages; the shortest horror story:
“The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.”

I assumed it was a female booty call.

[dracoi]

@MrDibble

IMO, of course: Being alone in the Universe would be more terrifying than not, because it would mean there was something wrong with our knowledge of how the Universe works - either our theories of the origin of life, or evolution, or basic chemistry or something would be incomplete or mistaken. Not being alone isn’t terrifying, it’s expected.

Isn’t that kind of the status quo too? I mean, between dark energy and dark matter, we only understand 5% of the universe to begin with. Even worse, our calculations for the cosmological constant are off by 120 orders of magnitude. The Higgs particle is making fun of us too - its observed value is right in between the predictions made by two camps of physicists. If the universe is good for nothing else, at least it keeps reminding us that there’s more to learn.

[msmith537]

@Dale_Sams

Disagree. The lock is scarier because the brain is creating reasons it’s there and the possibility the lock will never be used…but it MIGHT be tested. The knock is in the past as soon as it happens.

Also the knock isn’t nessecerily a bad situation, a lock is used to keep things out.

I disagree with your disagreement. Many, if not most doors have a lock on them. A locks an inanimate object. Now maybe the Last Man is a prisoner and the lock is to keep him in (which sucks because no one is left to let him out). Or maybe it’s just a regular door and it’s locked from when he locked it before going to bed.

But the KNOCK at the door is scarier because the implication is if the protagonist is the LMOE, who or what the fuck just knocked on the door?
Also the name of the story is “Knock” by Frederic Brown.