With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and the people went dancing, the procession was a dance. Children dodged in and out, their high calls rising like the swallows" crossing flights over the music and the singing. All the processions wound towards the north side of the city, where on the great water-meadow called the Green Fields boys and girls, naked in the bright air, with mud-stained feet and ankles and long, lithe arms, exercised their restive horses before the race. The horses wore no gear at all but a halter without bit. Their manes were braided with streamers of silver, gold, and green. They flared their nostrils and pranced and boasted to one another; they were vastly excited, the horse being the only animal who has adopted our ceremonies as his own. Far off to the north and west the mountains stood up half encircling Omelas on her bay. The air of morning was so clear that the snow still crowning the Eighteen Peaks burned with white-gold fire across the miles of sunlit air, under the dark blue of the sky. There was just enough wind to make the banners that marked the racecourse snap and flutter now and then. In the silence of the broad green meadows one could hear the music winding through the city streets, farther and nearer and ever approaching, a cheerful faint sweetness of the air that from time to time trembled and gathered together and broke out into the great joyous clanging of the bells.
Joyous! How is one to tell about joy? How describe the citizens of Omelas?
They were not simple folk, you see, though they were happy. But we do not say the words of cheer much any more. All smiles have become archaic. Given a description such as this one tends to make certain a.s.sumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his n.o.ble knights, or perhaps in a golden litter borne by great-muscled slaves. But there was no king. They did not use swords, or keep slaves. They were not barbarians. I do not know the rules and laws of their society, but I suspect that they were singularly few. As they did without monarchy and slavery, so they also got on without the stock exchange, the advertis.e.m.e.nt, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, n.o.ble savages, bland utopians. They were not less complex than us. The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the ba.n.a.lity of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can"t lick "em, join "em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy. How can I tell you about the people of Omelas? they were not naive and happy children-though their children were, in fact, happy. They were mature, intelligent, pa.s.sionate adults whose lives were not wretched. O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Omelas sounds in my words like a city in a fairy tale, long ago and far away, once upon a time. Perhaps it would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, a.s.suming it will rise to the occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all. For instance, how about technology? I think that there would be no cars or helicopters in and above the streets; this follows from the fact that the people of Omelas are happy people. Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive. In the middle category, however-that of the unnecessary but undestructive, that of comfort, luxury, exuberance, etc. -they could perfectly well have central heating, subway trains, washing machines, and all kinds of marvelous devices not yet invented here, floating light-sources, fuelless power, a cure for the common cold. Or they could have none of that: it doesn"t matter. As you like it. I incline to think that people from towns up and down the coast have been coming in to Omelas during the last days before the Festival on very fast little trains and double-decked trams, and that the train station of Omelas is actually the handsomest building in town, though plainer than the magnificent Farmers" Market. But even granted trains, I fear that Omelas so far strikes some of you as goody-goody. Smiles, bells, parades, horses, bleh. If so, please add an orgy. If an orgy would help, don"t hesitate. Let us not, however, have temples from which issue beautiful nude priests and priestesses already half in ecstasy and ready to copulate with any man or woman, lover or stranger, who desires union with the deep G.o.dhead of the blood, although that was my first idea. But really it would be better not to have any temples in Omelas-at least, not manned temples. Religion yes, clergy no. Surely the beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine souffles to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh. Let them join the processions. Let tambourines be struck above the copulations, and the glory of desire be proclaimed upon the gongs, and (a not unimportant point) let the offspring of these delightful rituals be beloved and looked after by all. One thing I know there is none of in Omelas is guilt. But what else should there be? I thought at first there were no drugs, but that is puritanical. For those who like it, the faint insistent sweetness of drooz may perfume the ways of the city, drooz which first brings a great lightness and brilliance to the mind and limbs, and then after some hours a dreamy languor, and wonderful visions at last of the very arcana and inmost secrets of the Universe, as well as exciting the pleasure of s.e.x beyond all belief; and it is not habit-forming. For more modest tastes I think there ought to be beer. What else, what else belongs in the joyous city? the sense of victory, surely, the celebration of courage. But as we did without clergy, let us do without soldiers. The joy built upon successful slaughter is not the right kind of joy; it will not do; it is fearful and it is trivial. A boundless and generous contentment, a magnanimous triumph felt not against some outer enemy but in communion with the finest and fairest in the souls of all men everywhere and the splendor of the world"s summer: this is what swells the hearts of the people of Omelas, and the victory they celebrate is that of life. I really don"t think many of them need to take drooz.
Most of the processions have reached the Green Fields by now. A marvelous smell of cooking goes forth from the red and blue tents of the provisioners. The faces of small children are amiably sticky; in the benign grey beard of a man a couple of crumbs of rich pastry are entangled. The youths and girls have mounted their horses and are beginning to group around the starting line of the course. An old woman, small, fat, and laughing, is pa.s.sing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men wear her flowers in their shining hair. A child of nine or ten sits at the edge of the crowd, alone, playing on a wooden flute. People pause to listen, and they smile, but they do not speak to him, for he never ceases playing and never sees them, his dark eyes wholly rapt in the sweet, thin magic of the tune.
He finishes, and slowly lowers his hands holding the wooden flute.
As if that little private silence were the signal, all at once a trumpet sounds from the pavilion near the starting line: imperious, melancholy, piercing. The horses rear on their slender legs, and some of them neigh in answer. Sober-faced, the young riders stroke the horses" necks and soothe them, whispering, "Quiet, quiet, there my beauty, my hope. . . . " they begin to form in rank along the starting line. The crowds along the racecourse are like a field of gra.s.s and flowers in the wind. The Festival of Summer has begun.
Do you believe? Do you accept the festival, the city, the joy? No? then let me describe one more thing.
In a bas.e.m.e.nt under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its s.p.a.cious private homes, there is a room. It has one locked door, and no window. A little light seeps in dustily between cracks in the boards, secondhand from a cobwebbed window somewhere across the cellar. In one corner of the little room a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, stand near a rusty bucket. The floor is dirt, a little damp to the touch, as cellar dirt usually is. The room is about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In the room a child is sitting. It could be a boy or a girl. It looks about six, but actually is nearly ten. It is feeble-minded. Perhaps it was born defective, or perhaps it has become imbecile through fear, malnutrition, and neglect. It picks its nose and occasionally fumbles vaguely with its toes or genitals, as it sits hunched in the corner farthest from the bucket and the two mops. It is afraid of the mops. It finds them horrible. It shuts its eyes, but it knows the mops are still standing there; and the door is locked; and n.o.body will come. The door is always locked; and n.o.body ever comes, except that sometimes-the child has no understanding of time or interval-sometimes the door rattles terribly and opens, and a person, or several people, are there. One of them may come in and kick the child to make it stand up. The others never come close, but peer in at it with frightened, disgusted eyes. The food bowl and the water jug are hastily filled, the door is locked, the eyes disappear. The people at the door never say anything, but the child, who has not always lived in the tool room, and can remember sunlight and its mother"s voice, sometimes speaks.
"I will be good," it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" they never answer. The child used to scream for help at night, and cry a good deal, but now it only makes a kind of whining, "eh-haa, eh-haa," and it speaks less and less often. It is so thin there are no calves to its legs; its belly protrudes; it lives on a half-bowl of corn meal and grease a day. It is naked. Its b.u.t.tocks and thighs are a ma.s.s of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually.
They all know it is there, all the people of Omelas. Some of them have come to see it, others are content merely to know it is there. They all know that it has to be there. Some of them understand why, and some do not, but they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child"s abominable misery.
This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they seem capable of understanding; and most of those who come to see the child are young people, though often enough an adult comes, or comes back, to see the child. No matter how well the matter has been explained to them, these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage, impotence, despite all the explanations. They would like to do something for the child. But there is nothing they can do. If the child were brought up into the sunlight out of that vile place, if it were cleaned and fed and comforted, that would be a good thing, indeed; but if it were done, in that day and hour all the prosperity and beauty and delight of Omelas would wither and be destroyed. Those are the terms. To exchange all the goodness and grace of every life in Omelas for that single, small improvement: to throw away the happiness of thousands for the chance of the happiness of one: that would be to let guilt within the walls indeed.
The terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child.
Often the young people go home in tears, or in a tearless rage, when they have seen the child and faced this terrible paradox. They may brood over it for weeks or years. But as time goes on they begin to realize that even if the child could be released, it would not get much good of its freedom: a little vague pleasure of warmth and food, no doubt, but little more. It is too degraded and imbecile to know any real joy. It has been afraid too long ever to be free of fear. Its habits are too uncouth for it to respond to humane treatment. Indeed, after so long it would probably be wretched without walls about it to protect it, and darkness for its eyes, and its own excrement to sit in. Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality, and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know compa.s.sion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the n.o.bility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first morning of summer.
Now do you believe in them? Are they not more credible? But there is one more thing to tell, and this is quite incredible.
At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home. These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pa.s.s down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the darkness, and they do not come back. The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
Evidence Of Love In A Case Of Abandonment.
One Daughter"s Personal Account.
by M. Rickert.
M. Rickert"s stories have been appearing regularly in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction for several years, starting in 1999 with her first publication, "The Girl Who Ate b.u.t.terflies. " Her work has also appeared in SCI FICTION and the anthologies Wastelands, Poe, and Feeling Very Strange. A new collection of her short fiction, Holiday, came out in November. Her first collection, Map of Dreams, won the World Fantasy Award and the William L. Crawford Award for best first book-length work of fantasy, and her story, "Journey to the Kingdom" won her another World Fantasy Award and was a finalist for the Nebula Award. This story was a finalist for the Stoker, British SF, and Shirley Jackson awards.
In 1979, Ruhollah Khomeini-Islamic scholar and fundamentalist-became the Supreme Leader of Iran. In this position, Khomeini served as the highest political and religious figure of the nation. Under his leadership, a revolution swept across the country, brushing aside years of Western influences. Women with college educations stepped down from their work as doctors, educators, and business a.s.sociates, and returned to their traditional place in the home. They put on their veils and scarves and became invisible to everyone except their closest family members.
Rickert says that our next story was meant to take a sort of sideways look at what has already happened to women in countries where their freedom is denied. It"s a story set in an America that has made its own conservative revolution. It"s a world with harsh rules for women, and a strict delineation of acceptable behavior.
In a such a place, where women have given up their reproductive freedoms, there are only two choices: be a good girl-or die.
"When I, or people like me, are running the country, you"d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we"ll execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed."
-Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue IT took a long time to deduce that many of the missing women could not be accounted for. Executions were a matter of public record then and it was still fairly easy to keep track of them. They were on every night at seven o"clock, filmed from the various execution centers. It was policy back then to name the criminal as the camera lingered over her face. Yet women went missing who never appeared on execution. Rumors started. Right around then some of the policies changed. The criminals were no longer named, and execution centers sprung up all over the country so it was no longer possible to account for the missing. The rumors persisted though, and generally took one of two courses; Agents were using the criminals for their own nefarious purposes, or women were sneaking away and a.s.sembling an army.
When my mother didn"t come home, my father kept saying she must have had a meeting he"d forgotten about, after all, she volunteered for Homeland Security"s Mothers in Schools program, as well as did work for the church, and the library. That"s my mom. She always has to keep busy. When my father started calling hospitals, his freckles all popped out against his white skin the way they get when he"s upset, and I realized he was hoping she"d had an accident, I knew. The next morning, when I found him sitting in the rocker, staring out the picture window, their wedding alb.u.m in his lap, I really knew.
Of course I am not the only abandoned daughter. Even here, there are a few of us. We are not marked in any way a stranger could see, but we are known in our community. Things are better for those whose mothers are executed. They are a separate group from those of us whose mothers are unaccounted for, who may be so evil as to escape reparation for their crimes, so sick as to plan to attack the innocent ones left behind.
I am obsessed with executions, though there are too many to keep track of, hard as I try to flip through the screens and have them all going on at once. I search for her face. There are many faces. Some weeping, some screaming, some with lips trembling, or nostrils flaring but I never see her face. Jenna Offeren says her mother was executed in Albany but she"s lying. Jenna Offeren is a weak, annoying person but I can"t completely blame her. Even my own father tried it. One morning he comes into my room, sits at the edge of my bed and says, "Lisle, I"m sorry. I saw her last night. Your mother. They got her. " I just shook my head. "Don"t try to make me feel better," I said, " I know she"s still alive. "
My mother and I, we have that thing some twins have. That"s how close we"ve always been. Once, when I was still a little kid, I fell from a tree at Sarah T. "s house and my mom came running into the backyard, her hair a mess, her lipstick smeared, before Mrs. T. had even finished dialing the cell. "I just knew," mom said, "I was washing the windows and all of a sudden I had this pain in my stomach and I knew you needed me. I came right over. " My wrist was broke (and to this day hurts when it"s going to rain) and I couldn"t do my sewing or synchronized swimming for weeks, but I almost didn"t mind because, back then I thought me and mom had something special between us, and what happened with my wrist proved it. Now I"m not so sure. Everything changes when your mother goes missing.
I look for her face all the time. Not just on the screens but on the heads of other women, not here, of course, but if we go to Milwaukee, or on the school trip to Chicago, I look at every women"s face, searching for hers. I"m not the only one either. I caught Jenna Offeren doing the same thing, though she denied it. (Not mine, of course. Hers. ) Before she left us, Mom was not exactly a happy person, but what normal American girl goes around a.s.suming that her own mother is a murderer? She even helped me with my project in seventh year, cutting out advertis.e.m.e.nts that used that model, Heidi Eagle, who was executed the year before, and I remember, so clearly, mom saying that Heidi"s children would have been beautiful, so how was I to know that my own mother was one of the evil doers?
But then what did I think was going on with all that crying? My mother cried all the time. She cried when she was doing the dishes, she cried when she cleaned the toilets, she even cried in the middle of laughing, like the time I told her about Mr. Saunders demonstrating to us girls what it"s like to be pregnant with a basketball. The only time I can ever remember my mom saying anything traceable, anything that could be linked from our perfect life to the one I"m stuck in now, was when she found a list of boys names on my T. S. O. and asked if they were boys I had crushes on. I don"t know what she was thinking to say such a thing because there were seven names on that list and I am not a s.l.u.t, but anyhow, I explained that they were baby names I was considering for when my time came and she got this look on her face like maybe she"d been a hologram all along and was just going to fade away and then she said, "When I was your age, I planned on being an astronaut. "
My cheeks turned bright red, of course. I was embarra.s.sed for her to talk like that. She tried to make light of it by looking over the list, letting me know which names she liked (Liam and Jack) and which she didn"t (Paul and Luke. ) If the time ever comes (and I am beginning to have my doubts that it will) I"m going to choose one of the names she hated. It"s not much, but it"s all I have. There"s only so much you can do to a mother who is missing.
My father says I"m spending too much time watching screens so he has insisted that we do something fun together, "as a family" he said, trying to make it sound cheerful like we aren"t the lamest excuse for family you"ve ever seen, just me and him.
There"s plenty of families without mothers, of course. Apparently this was initially a surprise to Homeland Security, it was generally a.s.sumed that those women who had abortions during the dark times never had any children, but a lot of women of my mother"s generation were swayed by the evil propaganda of their youth, had abortions and careers even, before coming back to the light of righteous behavior. So having an executed mother is not necessarily that bad. There"s a whole extra shame in being a.s.sociated with a mother who is missing however, out there somewhere, in a militia or something. (With the vague possibility that she is not stockpiling weapons and learning about car bombs, but captured by one of the less ethical Agents, but what"s the real chance of that? Isn"t that just a fantasy kids like Jenna Offeren came up with because they can"t cope?) At any rate, to counteract the less palatable rumor, and the one that puts the Agents in the worse light, Homeland Security has recently begun the locks of hair program. Now they send strands of criminal"s hair to the family and it"s become a real trend for the children to wear it in see-through lockets. None of this makes sense, of course. The whole reason the executions became anonymous in the first place was to put to rest the anarchist notion that some women had escaped their fate, but Homeland Security is not the department of consistency (I think I can say that) and seems to lean more towards a policy of confusion. The locks of hair project has been very successful and has even made some money as families are now paying to have executed women"s corpses dug up for their hair. At any rate, you guessed it, Jenna shows up at execution with a lock of hair necklace that she says comes from her mother but I know it"s Jenna"s own hair, which is blonde and curly while her mom"s was brownish gray. "that"s "cause she dyed it," Jenna says. I give up. n.o.body dyes their hair brownish gray. Jenna has just gone completely nuts.
It seems like the whole town is at execution and I realize my father"s right, I"ve been missing a lot by watching them on screen all the time. "Besides, it"s starting to not look right, never going. It was different when your mother was still with us," he said. So I agreed, though I didn"t expect much. I mean no way would they execute my mom right here in her home town. Sure, it happens but it would be highly unlikely, so what"s the point? I expected it to be incredibly boring like church, or the meetings of the Young Americans, or Home Ec cla.s.s but it wasn"t anything like any of that. Screens really give you no idea of the excitement of an execution and if you, like me, think that you"ve seen it all because you"ve been watching it on screen for years, I recommend you attend your own hometown event. It just might surprise you. Besides, it"s important to stay active in your community.
We don"t have a stadium, of course, not in a town of a population of eight thousand and dwindling, so executions are held on the football field the first Wednesday of every month. I was surprised by the screens displayed around the field but my father said that was the only way you could get a real good look at the faces, and he was right. It was fascinating to look at the figure in the center of the field, how small she looked, to the face on the screen, freakishly large. Just like on screen at home, the women were all ages from grandmothers to women my mother"s age and a few probably younger. The problem is under control now. No one would think of getting an abortion. There"s already talk about cutting back the program in a few years and I feel kind of sentimental about it. I"ve grown up with executions and can"t imagine what kids will watch instead. Not that I would wish this on anyone. It"s a miserable thing to be in my situation. Maybe no one will even want me now. I ask my dad about this on the way to execution, what happens to girls like me and for a while he pretends he doesn"t know what I"m talking about until I spell it out and he can"t act all Homeland Security. He shakes his head and sighs. "It"s too soon to say, Lisle. Daughters of executed moms, they"ve done all right, maybe you know, not judges" wives, or Agents", or anyone like that, but they"ve had a decent time of it for the most part. Daughters of missing moms, well, it"s just too soon to tell. Hey, maybe you"ll get to be a breeder. " He says it like it"s a good thing, giving up my babies every nine or ten months.
"I hate mom," I say. He doesn"t scold me. After all, what she did, she did to both of us.
It seems like the whole town is here, though I know this can"t be right because it"s the first time I"ve come since I was a kid, and that would be statistically improbable if we were the only ones who never came back, but, even though I am certain it"s not the whole town, I"d have to say it"s pretty close to it. Funny how in all these faces and noise and excitement I can see who"s wearing locks of hair lockets as if they are made of shining light, which of course they are not. I could forgive her, I think- and I"m surprised by the tears in my eyes- if she"d just do the right thing and turn herself in. Maybe I"m not being fair. After all, maybe she"s trapped somewhere, held prisoner by some Agent and there"s nothing she can do about it. I, too, take comfort in this little fantasy from time to time.
Each execution is done individually. She walks across the entire field in a hood. The walk takes a long time "cause of the shackles. I can think of no reasonable explanation for the hood, beyond suspense. It is very effective. The beginning of the walk is a good time to take a bathroom break or get a snack, that"s how long it takes. No one wants to be away from his seat when the criminal gets close to the red circle at the center of the field. The closer she gets to the circle (led by one of the Junior Agents, or, as is the case tonight, by one of the children from the town"s various civic programs) the more quiet it gets until eventually the only noise is the sound of chains. I"ve heard this on screen a million times but then there is neighborhood noise going on, cars, maybe someone talking on a cell, dogs barking, that sort of thing, but when the event is live there"s no sound other than maybe a cough or a baby crying. I have to tell you all those people in the same s.p.a.ce being quiet, the only sound the chains rattling around the criminal"s ankles and wrists, well it"s way more powerful than how it seems on screen. She always stands for a few seconds in the center of the circle but she rarely stands still. Once placed in position, hands and feet shackled, she displays her fear by wavering, or the shoulders go up, sometimes she is shaking so bad you can see it even if you"re not looking on screen.
The child escort walks away to polite applause and the Executioner comes to position. He unties the hood, pauses for dramatic effect (and it is dramatic!) then plucks the hood off, which almost always causes some of her hair to stand out from her head, as though she"s been electrocuted, or taken off a knit cap on a snowy day, and at that moment we turn to the screen to get a closer look. I never get bored of it. The horror on their faces, the dripping nostrils, the spit bubbling from lips, the eyes wet with tears, wide with terror. Occasionally there is a stoic one, but there aren"t many of these, and when there is, it"s easy enough to look away from the screen and focus on the big picture. What had she been thinking? How could she murder someone so tiny, so innocent and not know she"d have to pay? When I think of what the time from before was like I shudder and thank G.o.d for being born in the Holy times. In spite of my mother, I am blessed. I know this, even though I sometimes forget. Right there, in the football field bleachers I fold my hands and bow my head. When I am finished my father is giving me a strange look. "If this is too upsetting we can leave," he says. He constantly makes mistakes like this. Sometimes I just ignore him, but this time I try to explain. "I just realized how lucky I am. " I can"t think of what else to say, how to make him understand so I simply smile. Right then the stoic woman is shot. When I look I see the gaping maul that was her head, right where that evil thought was first conceived to destroy the innocent life that grew inside her. Now she is neither stoic nor alive. She lies in a heap, twitching for a while, but those are just nerves.
It"s getting late. Some people use this time to usher their young children home. When we came, all those years ago, my mom letting me play with her gold chain while I sat in her lap, we were one of the first to leave, though I was not the youngest child in attendance. My mother was always strict that way. "Time for bed," she said cheerfully, first to me, and then by way of explanation, pressing my head tight against her shoulder, trying to make me look tired, pressing so hard that I started crying, which, I now realize, served her purpose.
My father says he has to use the bathroom. There is a pocket of s.p.a.ce around me when he leaves. My father is gone a long time. This is unusual for the men"s bathroom and I must admit I get a little worried about him, especially as the woman approaches the target circle but right when I am starting to think he"s going to be too late, he comes, his head bent low so as not to obstruct the view. He sits beside me at what is the last possible second. He shrugs and looks like he"s about to say something. Horrified, I turn away. It would be just like him to talk at a time like this.
The girl (from the Young and Beautiful club) dressed all in white with a flower wreathe on her head (and a locks of hair locket glimmering on her chest) walks away from the woman. The tenor of applause grows louder as the Executioner approaches. We are trying to show how much we"ve appreciated his work tonight. The Executioners are never named. They travel in some kind of secret rotation so no one can ever figure it out, but over time they get reputations. They wear masks, of course, or they would always be hounded for autographs, but are recognized, when they are working, by the insignia on their uniforms. This one is known as Red Dragon for the elaborate dragon on his chest. The applause can be registered on the criminal who shakes like Jell-O. She shakes so much that it is not unreasonable to wonder if she will be one of the fainters. I hate the fainters. They mess with the dramatic arc, all that build up of the long walk, the rattling chains, the Executioner"s arrival, only to have the woman fall in a large heap on the ground. Sometimes it takes forever to revive her, and some effort to get her to stand, at which point the execution is anti-climatic.
The Executioner, perhaps sensing this very scenario, says something to Jell-O woman that none of us can hear but she suddenly goes still. There is scattered applause for Red Dragon"s skill. He turns towards the audience, and, though he wears his mask, there is something in his demeanor which hushes the crowd. We are watching a master at work. Next, he steps in front of the woman, reaches with both hands around her neck, creating the effect of a man about to give a kiss. We are all as still as if we are waiting for that kiss. With one gesture, he unties the string, and in the same breath reaches up and pulls off the hood. We gasp.
Mrs. Offeren"s face fills the screen. Someone screams. I think it is Jenna. I am torn between looking for her in the crowd, and keeping my attention on her mother, whose head turns at the sound so there is only a view of her giant ear but the Executioner says something sharp and she snaps her head back to attention. The screen betrays that her eyes peer past the Executioner, first narrow than wide, and her lips part at the moment she realizes she is home. Her eyes just keep moving after that, searching the crowd, looking for Jenna, I figure, until suddenly, how can it be suddenly when it happens like this every time, but it is suddenly, her head jerks back with the firecracker sound of the shot, she falls from the screen. She lies on the ground, twitching, the red puddle blossoming around her head. Jenna screams and screams. It is my impression that no one does anything to stop her. Nor does anyone use this break to go to the snack shop, or the bathroom, or home. I don"t know when my father"s hand has reached across the s.p.a.ce between us but at some point I realize it rests, gently, on my thigh, when I look at him, he squeezes, lightly, almost like a woman would, as though there is no strength left inside him. They quickly cut some of Mrs. Offeren"s hair before it gets too b.l.o.o.d.y, and bag it, lift her up, clumsily so that at first her arm and then her head falls towards the ground (the a.s.sistants are tired by this time of night) load her into the cart. We listen to the sound of the wheels that need to be oiled and the faint rattle of chains as the cart lumbers across the field. Jenna weeps audibly. The center of the red circle is coated in blood. I pretend it is a Rorschach and decide it looks exactly like a pterodactyl. The cleaning crew comes and hoses it down. That"s when people start moving about, talk, rush to the bathroom, take sleeping children home, but it goes mostly silent again when the Offeren family stands up. The seven of them sidle down the bleacher and walk along the side of the field.
I watch the back of Jenna"s head, her blonde curls under the lights, almost golden like a halo, though no one, not even the most forgiving person is ever going to mistake Jenna for someone holy. Her mother was a murderer, after all. Yet I realize she"ll soon replace that stupid fake locket with a real one while I have nothing. She might even get to marry a Police or a trash collector, even a teacher, while the best I can hope for is a position at one of the orphanages. My dad"s idea that I might be a breeder someday seems highly optimistic.
"Let"s go," I say.
"Are you sure? Maybe the next one. . . " But he doesn"t even finish the thought. He must see something in my face that tells him I am done with childish fantasies.
She"s never coming back. Whatever selfish streak caused her, all those years ago to kill one child is the same selfish streak that allows her to abandon me now.
We walk down the bleachers. Everyone turns away from us, holding their little kids close. My father walks in front of me, with his head down, his hands in his pockets. By the time we get to the car in the parking lot we can hear the polite applause from the football field as another woman enters the circle. He opens his door. I open mine. We drive home in silence. I crane my neck to try to look up at the sky as if I expect to find something there, G.o.d maybe, or the living incarnation of the blood pterodactyl but of course I see neither. There is nothing. I close my eyes and think of my mother. Oh, how I miss her.
The Funeral.
by Kate Wilhelm.
Kate Wilhelm is the winner of three Nebulas, two Hugos, and two Locus awards, and is an inductee to the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Her short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Omni, Asimov"s Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Orbit, and has been collected in several volumes, notably in The Mile-Long s.p.a.ceship; Listen, Listen; and The Infinity Box. Her SF novels include Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, Juniper Time, Welcome Chaos, and the Constance and Charlie series (The Hamlet Trap et seq. ). She has also written several legal thrillers, beginning in 1991 with Death Qualified. The latest of these "Barbara Holloway" mysteries, Cold Case, was released in 2008.
The story of two boys" quest for freedom, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of the greatest American novels. Jim wants to escape slavery. Huck wants to get away from his horrible father. Their adventures rafting down the Mississippi River have become a part of the American ident.i.ty, stirring up hopes and dreams inside the hearts of generations of dissatisfied children.
Our next story is set in a regimented society that, like the antebellum South, maintains some people are property, without voice and fully disposable. For girls like Clara, their lives are spent in frightened obedience, waiting for their futures to be set for them. Only the dying words of one mad woman offer Clara hope: the hint of a secret cave, a mysterious hideout that no one has ever found.
The Widow Douglas was always trying to "sivilize" Huck Finn-but she could never bend his indomitable spirit. If she could escape from her world, perhaps Clara could teach him a thing or two.
No one could say exactly how old Madam Westfall was when she finally died. At least one hundred twenty, it was estimated. At the very least. For twenty years Madam Westfall had been a sh.e.l.l containing the very latest products of advances made in gerontology, and now she was dead. What lay on the viewing dais was merely a painted, funereally garbed husk. "She isn"t real," Carla said to herself. "It"s a doll, or something. It isn"t really Madam Westfall. " She kept her head bowed, and didn"t move her lips, but she said the words over and over. She was afraid to look at a dead person. The second time they slaughtered all those who bore arms, unguided, mindless now, but lethal with the arms caches that they used indiscriminately. Carla felt goose b.u.mps along her arms and legs. She wondered if anyone else had been hearing the old Teacher"s words.
The line moved slowly, all the girls in their long grey skirts had their heads bowed, their hands clasped. The only sound down the corridor was the sushsush of slippers on plastic flooring, the occasional rustle of a skirt.
The viewing room had a pale green plastic floor, frosted-green plastic walls, and floor-to-ceiling windows that were now slits of brilliant light from a westering sun. All the furniture had been taken from the room, all the ornamentation. There were no flowers, nothing but the dais, and the bedlike box covered by a transparent shield. And the Teachers. Two at the dais, others between the light strips, at the doors. Their white hands clasped against black garb, heads bowed, hair slicked against each head, straight parts emphasizing bilateral symmetry. The Teachers didn"t move, didn"t look at the dais, at the girls parading past it.
Carla kept her head bowed, her chin tucked almost inside the V of her collarbone. The serpentine line moved steadily, very slowly. "She isn"t real," Carla said to herself, desperately now.
She crossed the line that was the cue to raise her head; it felt too heavy to lift, her neck seemed paralyzed. When she did move, she heard a joint crack, and although her jaws suddenly ached, she couldn"t relax.
The second green line. She turned her eyes to the right and looked at the incredibly shrunken, hardly human mummy. She felt her stomach lurch and for a moment she thought she was going to vomit. "She isn"t real. It"s a doll. She isn"t real!" the third line. She bowed her head, pressed her chin hard against her collarbone, making it hurt. She couldn"t swallow now, could hardly breathe. The line proceeded to the South Door and through it into the corridor.
She turned left at the South Door and, with her eyes downcast, started the walk back to her genetics cla.s.s. She looked neither right nor left, but she could hear others moving in the same direction, slippers on plastic, the swish of a skirt, and when she pa.s.sed by the door to the garden she heard laughter of some Ladies who had come to observe the viewing. She slowed down.
She felt the late sun hot on her skin at the open door and with a sideways glance, not moving her head, she looked quickly into the glaring greenery, but could not see them. Their laughter sounded like music as she went past the opening.
"That one, the one with the blue eyes and straw-colored hair. Stand up, girl. "
Carla didn"t move, didn"t realize she was being addressed until a Teacher pulled her from her seat.
"Don"t hurt her! Turn around, girl. Raise your skirts, higher. Look at me, child. Look up, let me see your face. . . . "
"She"s too young for choosing," said the Teacher, examining Carla"s bracelet.
"Another year, Lady. "
"A pity. She"ll coa.r.s.en in a year"s time. The fuzz is so soft right now, the flesh so tender. Oh, well. . . " She moved away, flicking a red skirt about her thighs, her red-clad legs narrowing to tiny ankles, flashing silver slippers with heels that were like icicles. She smelled. . . Carla didn"t know any words to describe how she smelled. She drank in the fragrance hungrily.
"Look at me, child. Look up, let me see your face. . . The words sang through her mind over and over. At night, falling asleep, she thought of the face, drawing it up from the deep black, trying to hold it in focus: white skin, pink cheek ridges, silver eyelids, black lashes longer than she had known lashes could be, silver-pink lips, three silver spots-one at the corner of her left eye, another at the corner of her mouth, the third like a dimple in the satiny cheek. Silver hair that was loose, in waves about her face, that rippled with life of its own when she moved. If only she had been allowed to touch the hair, to run her finger over that cheek. . . The dream that began with the music of the Lady"s laughter ended with the nightmare of her other words: "She"ll coa.r.s.en in a year"s time. . . . "
After that Carla had watched the changes take place on and within her body, and she understood what the Lady had meant. Her once smooth legs began to develop hair; it grew under her arms, and, most shameful, it sprouted as a dark, coa.r.s.e bush under her belly. She wept. She tried to pull the hairs out, but it hurt too much, and made her skin sore and raw. Then she started to bleed, and she lay down and waited to die, and was happy that she would die. Instead, she was ordered to the infirmary and was forced to attend a lecture on feminine hygiene. She watched in stony-faced silence while the Doctor added the new information to her bracelet. The Doctor"s face was smooth and pink, her eyebrows pale, her lashes so colorless and stubby that they were almost invisible. On her chin was a brown mole with two long hairs. She wore a straight blue-grey gown that hung from her shoulders to the floor. Her drab hair was pulled back tightly from her face, fastened in a hard bun at the back of her neck. Carla hated her. She hated the Teachers. Most of all she hated herself. She yearned for maturity.
Madam Westfall had written: "Maturity brings grace, beauty, wisdom, happiness. Immaturity means ugliness, unfinished beings with potential only, wholly dependent upon and subservient to the mature citizens. "
There was a True-False quiz on the master screen in front of the cla.s.sroom. Carla took her place quickly and touch-typed her ID number on the small screen of her machine.
She scanned the questions, and saw that they were all simple declarative statements of truth. Her stylus ran down the True column of her answer screen and it was done. She wondered why they were killing time like this, what they were waiting for. Madam Westfall"s death had thrown everything off schedule.
Paperlike brown skin, wrinkled and hard, with lines crossing lines, vertical, horizontal, diagonal, leaving little islands of flesh, hardly enough to coat the bones. Cracked voice, incomprehensible: they took away the music from the air. . . voices from the skies. . . erased pictures that move. . . boxes that sing and sob. . . Crazy talk. And, . . . only one left that knows. Only one.
Madam Trudeau entered the cla.s.sroom and Carla understood why the cla.s.s had been personalized that period. The Teacher had been waiting for Madam Trudeau"s appearance. The girls rose hurriedly. Madam Trudeau motioned for them to be seated once more.
"The following girls attended Madam Westfall during the past five years. " She read a list. Carla"s name was included on her list. On finishing it, she asked, "Is there anyone who attended Madam Westfall whose name I did not read?"
There was a rustle from behind Carla. She kept her gaze fastened on Madam Trudeau. "Name?" the Teacher asked.
"Luella, Madam. "
"You attended Madam Westfall? When?"
"Two years ago, Madam. I was a relief for Sonya, who became ill suddenly. "
"Very well. " Madam Trudeau added Luella"s name to her list. "You will all report to my office at eight A. M. Tomorrow morning. You will be excused from cla.s.ses and duties at that time. Dismissed. " With a bow she excused herself to the cla.s.s Teacher and left the room.
Carla"s legs twitched and ached. Her swim cla.s.s was at eight each morning and she had missed it, had been sitting on the straight chair for almost two hours, when finally she was told to go into Madam Trudeau"s office. None of the other waiting girls looked up when she rose and followed the attendant from the anteroom. Madam Trudeau was seated at an oversized desk that was completely bare, with a mirrorlike finish. Carla stood before it with her eyes downcast, and she could see Madam Trudeau"s face reflected from the surface of the desk. Madam Trudeau was looking at a point over Carla"s head, unaware that the girl was examining her features.
"You attended Madam Westfall altogether seven times during the past four years, is that correct?"
"I think it is, Madam. "
"You aren"t certain?"
"I. . . I don"t remember, Madam. "
"I see. Do you recall if Madam Westfall spoke to you during any of those times?"
"Yes, Madam. "
"Carla, you are shaking. Are you frightened?"
"No, Madam. "
"Look at me, Carla. "
Carla"s hands tightened, and she could feel her fingernails cutting into her hands. She thought of the pain, and stopped shaking.
Madam Trudeau had pasty white skin, with peaked black eyebrows, sharp black eyes, black hair. Her mouth was wide and full, her nose long and narrow. As she studied the girl before her, it seemed to Carla that something changed in her expression, but she couldn"t say what it was, or how it now differed from what it had been a moment earlier. A new intensity perhaps, a new interest.
"Carla, I"ve been looking over your records. Now that you are fourteen it is time to decide on your future. I shall propose your name for the Teachers" Academy on the completion of your current courses. As my protegee, you will quit the quarters you now occupy and attend me in my chambers. . . . " She narrowed her eyes, "What is the matter with you, girl? Are you ill?"
"No, Madam. I. . . I had hoped. I mean, I designated my choice last month. I thought. . . "