I am not sure how well this little story works, but I am so upset and heart-wrenched about this that I had to take a stab at writing something about it. The Penn State child abuse “scandal,” which I prefer to call an “outrage,” has really gotten to me. John Scalzi wrote a great post about this and brought Ursula K. Le Guin’s great story “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” into it. Both John Barnes and I mentioned wanting to write a sequel, and since I am apparently paralyzed by anger and frustration about this (for personal reasons mostly), I thought I would try a spot of writing therapy. This is the result.
This is a zero draft that I wrote in about 90 minutes. Comments are welcome.
“The Ones Who Went Back”
As the sun arose in the east on the second day of summer, the people of Omelas slowly rose from their beds and began a new day. Bedsheets were flung off, soft robes and tunics laid out, windows opened to let in as much light and fresh air as possible as the people of the city lounged in their bedclothes and drank juices and teas and light spirits while the best scents of the sea and the farmland around them wafted in and mingled with smells of fresh pastries, ripe fruits spilling from bowls, and the sizzle of eggs and perfectly-smoked bacon. As the night’s coolness gave way to the sun’s invigorating warmth, the citizens laughed and touched fingers and shared morsels of their morning repast with each other, and opened themselves to the coming of yet another wonderful day.
As they bathed and dressed after a luxurious morning, a few clouds drifted in. No one paid much heed to this, for even in early summer this was common. There was little rain but, as some wags put it, too much sunshine would get boring. Part of the happiness of the city was invested in such small changes, and the rhythms of those changes were well-known and welcomed. So the citizens went about their day without concern, and as more clouds gathered and the sun rose higher the streets came alive with purpose and the certainty that the day would go well, as the days always did in this place.
By the time the sun reached its zenith, a few people began looking skyward, feeling something they rarely felt: concern. The older folks noted that the sky was a bit different, but could not explain why. They shrugged, secure in the knowledge that this would not last long. The guarantee of their happiness assured them of this, and they acknowledged its source while not seeing it in their minds. A few thought of it, briefly, but did not let their mind’s eyes adjust to the darkness, rubbed the smells out of their noses with a quick scouring of the back of their hands, took a sip of pure water or tea to wash away the ghost of a taste in the air from a long time ago. A momentary shiver, perhaps, a slight gritting of the teeth, and then back to fixing a net or correcting a child’s writing or daubing fresh paint on a tower’s crenelations.
It was one of those painters who first saw them. Joking with his fellows while smearing a brilliant blue on the bricks and trim of the turret, he looked off to the west, towards the mountains, and quite suddenly stiffened in his harness and dropped his brush. It fell to the platform below and splashed into a vat of empyrean white, staining the freshly-coated wall below him with splotches and rivulets that besmirched the entire morning’s work. His companions laughed, even though their work was ruined, until they saw him gasp, and then fumble to clamber back down. His feet slammed onto the platform and as his coworkers gaped at him he pointed over their shoulders to the land beyond the walls.
They turned, and saw a long line of tiny forms, like ants but only slightly so, moving towards the city. The shrouded sun had muted the contrast they presented on the landscape until they were quite close, and who in Omelas ever bothered to look outside the walls, except to check on the farmlands that required almost no care? But here came visitors, a thin, moving strand that stretched to the horizon. People were coming, and every throat on that platform turned chalk-dry and every face tightened until all the bones showed and threatened to break through the skin.
Once back on the ground, the painters ran, some to their homes, others to the city hall. The word spread quickly, but the feeling spread faster. In a world where only one thing is wrong the sight of a man running and not stopping for anything sends a message. People did not try to stop these runners, but gathered in groups and asked one another what was happening. This was not the pace of an early summer’s day; this was not some happy urgency of good news. They looked up at the sky and realized that now it was not beclouded, but an iron-gray sheet over their heads. And a feeling that was rarely felt began to rise: a form of worry that had no source that anyone could speak of, would speak of.
By the time the elders were informed and they have moved, quickly but not headlong, to the gates of the city, the approaching line has reached the vast portal, which was always open but never inviting. Here is what they saw: men and women, old and young people, hobblers and striders, all marching resolutely through the gateway and into the city. They all held their heads high, although some were crying, others frowning, a few oddly smiling. They were dressed in all manners of clothes, most in drab colors, much of it simple wear, but a hundred different fortunes were worn on their bodies. Some looked prosperous and well-fed, some wore threadbare garb and had a gaunt hang to their skin. A few were scuffed and dirty, in tatters, limping, missing an eye or a finger, a few muttered to themselves and trembled, but all walked with the same sense of purpose. All of their eyes looked forward, and while their paces were different them seemed to move as one.
In the first moment, the elders do not know what to do. No one in the city does. Then, a few point and say “I know him!” and “She’s from our family!” and there is a brief sense of rejoicing, for those who walked away have returned! Older folk nod at their good sense while former friends and lovers see familiar faces and wave and shout greetings. But that does not last long, for when none of the returnees reply, when they just keep walking down the broad avenue, the noises die. Smiles turn to flat lines on worried faces. None in this marching horde do anything but continue to walk, now turning towards the public building that everyone of age has been in before.
Now the elders act: they set themselves in front of the marchers, and with raised hands and stern tones tell them to halt. The walkers continue on, brushing past the elders, shouldering them aside, not with force, but with the momentum of their purpose. Citizens step before them too, trying to turn sons and cousins and wives back, cajoling, imploring, but the walkers continue their journey. As they approach the building an elder runs ahead and locks the doors, standing with arms crossed before the great aperture. Now the crowds are begging, screaming, grabbing at sleeves and cloaks to pull the marchers aside, but their grips are weak and the steady gait of the wayfarers pulls them away from the people they no longer know. When they reached the massive portico they push the elder before them, and it is his back that swings the huge door open, for there is only one door in the city that can truly be locked. He is shoved aside with his useless door, his keys jerked from his flaccid hands, and the exiles close ranks as they pour into the great hall.
They fill the rooms of the building so quickly that no citizen can get in behind them. There is panicked screeching in the streets, wailing, tugging at dress hems and pant legs as citizens fall to the ground and try to use their bodies to weigh down the dissenters. But they keep moving, until they have filled the great edifice and no more can enter. Only then do they stop, and stand, unmoving and unmoved by the chaos growing around them.
Inside, two have come to a door in the cellar. The man and woman stare at the door. It is tenebrous, of cracking wood and half-shadows, that is poorly cared for because of what lies behind it. The woman jingles the keys she took from the elder. The man sighs, puts a hand on the door. Upstairs is silence, even though the room above is filled with people. But outside the window behind them, which gives the cellar its only light, there is noise. People thump their fists on the strong, dirty window, and while their shouts are muted both of them feel what is being said, what is being asked of them. They look at each other, shake their heads, and together open the door.
The smell actually comes first, just as they remember it from the last time they were there. Putrid, noxious, and craven, it smells vaguely human, strongly of waste, and brings tears to their eyes not because of the stench but because of what the smell contains, a memory that puts the man on his knees and make the woman hug herself, for a moment oblivious to the desperate riot behind them and the quiet resolve above. They are frozen, because here, in this dimness, the stink of the little room wafting over them, saturating them, is what they walked away from, and they feel that urge to do so again. They smell their own meekness; they can taste something bitter and pitiable mixed in with the redolence of excrement and sweat and a horrible sweetness. The hear the crowds outside, and also hear the mute ones above. The man can feel, under his knees, the dirt vibrating with the terror and veniality of those outside, while his hair prickles with the shame and immobility of those above, and his own sudden paralysis. So close now, but. . . .
The woman shudders. She smells fear, but from within the small room itself. She cannot hear the crowds outside, or feel the weight of the waiting comrades above. She hears a tiny noise, from the closet, a sore-ridden tongue scraped across moldering teeth, and she begins to shake steadily. The smells begin to change; they are of a boy’s abused bowels desperately purging his body, of unending pain sweated out through reddened, welted skin, of the daily rot that slowly winds that child’s life down for the city’s comfort. She cannot stop hugging herself, but she moves, she nudges the man with her foot. He starts, grabs her foot, and lets it carry him to the ground when she puts it back down. He puts his face in the dirt, and when it smudges his cheek and stings his eyes, he lifts himself back up, tasting the combined flavors of the little room with the world outside. In one motion he rises, and reaches out to the woman. and she frees a hand to grasp his. And then the boy whimpers, and they enter the room.
They kneel down to him. He recoils and whispers that he will be good, that he will do whatever they want, that he, that he. . . he doesn’t know what to say. He realizes as they sit with him in the filth that something is different. The man touches the boy’s face and asks if he can stand while the woman removes her cape and starts to clean him. The boy begins to cry, afraid that it is a trick, until the woman slides her cape beneath him and he feels soft cloth instead of filth-caked floor, and he lets himself fall into the man’s arms.
For a time, all they do is cry. Then, the man and woman lift the boy together, she covering him while he whispers to the boy over and over, words that are meaningless to repeat here. They bring him up from the cellar, shield his eyes from the light, dim as it is, and move with him to the center of the crowd. And then, as one again, the exiles move to leave the city once again.
The citizens are weeping now, some trying to worm their way into the tightly packed march to get to the boy, to put him back, while others sullenly tear their clothes, and a few join in with the marchers, moving as part of one thing back to the city gate. As they leave, citizens follow behind offering everything they can think of for the boy’s return: riches, love, forgiveness, a place in the city once again. But the marchers stride out of the city, leaving its inhabitants to shriek and blame the exiles for their coming misfortune. They are berated as they leave; do they not know what they do?
With renewed purpose they depart, their mass unassailable, their ears closed to all entreaties. No one breaks away, no one says a final blessing for the city. The man and woman move through the company so that their compatriots can see the boy, and that he can see them. He recognizes some of them, who came and looked at him with disgust and rage, but cannot smile at them, only lay his head on the man’s shoulder and squeeze the woman’s hand. He is carried out on a river of souls through the gates and away from city.
As the last one passes through the gate, the sky reverberates with thunder. No citizen follows them; why leave now? They stand upon the walls, under the portal, on rooftops and turrets and watch the exiles leave again. None are surprised by the rumbling beneath them, and some even whisper welcome to it.
The exiles stop. The man and woman and the boy all turn to look back. With a more merciful swiftness than any of them wish the city shakes and fall in on itself, with thunderclaps above signaling the end. It is quickly a pile of dust; even the bodies of the citizens turn into useless powder. The fields wither, the harbor waters withdraw, and suddenly there is just a patina of grime where the great city stood. The watchers wait until the sky is blue again and the sun shines, slowly setting in the west, before they go on with their journey. The boy drifts off to dreamless sleep, knowing now that there is no nightmare that will ever terrorize him again.
Paul (@princejvstin) said:
I shamefully admit to having not yet read “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”, so I am unqualified to comment on your own work here.
J. H. Stevens said:
Well, I understand that you can’t make a comparison, but you are not disqualified from commenting on how the story works!
J. H. Stevens said:
I should add that if you still feel unable to comment that’s fine, but I did not want a concern about comparison to prohibit you.
Paul (@princejvstin) said:
Well, I wanted to be more informed. 🙂
Anyway, for a 0th draft story, I thought it was effective. You probably could submit a polished draft of this to some venue and get it published. The last paragraph is almost phantasmagorical in its imagery, and a chillingly effective ending.
Laurie Hemmings said:
It’s beautiful in its rage and its justice, John. I love the ending where the boy knows “no nightmare that will ever terrorize him again.” Sadly, memory is seldom so kind.
J. H. Stevens said:
Thanks. And yes, the ending is relatively happy. I kinda needed it at that point.
Paul (@princejvstin) said:
Yeah, definitely.
jkr said:
The ending was the one thing that just didn’t work at all for me. The rest of it needs some polishing (that’s not meant as a criticism, but only an acknowledgement that it’s a draft), but that…I can understand needing a happy ending, I wanted one–but that line rang false to me, after so much painful truth.
Thank you very much for the story, though. (And hello–I don’t think I’ve read you before, but just followed the link from Whatever.)
J. H. Stevens said:
Jean:
The ending is the part that needs the most work, I think, because it really is therapeutic and wish-fulfilling, If I worked on this I would have to think hard about what rings most true, and also, as some of my compatriots in my writing group pointed out last night, consider the main confrontation between the exiles and the citizens more soberly.
Thanks for reading it; I’m glad that you found it interesting.
Adam said:
I loved the story, written out of rage, comes hope. May the victims find some peace and all who knew and did nothing be held to justice.
J. H. Stevens said:
Thanks very much, Adam. Yeah, I would like that too.
vaughn said:
Thank you. I needed that more just and victorious ending.
J. H. Stevens said:
You’re very welcome. I needed it too, at least for the moment.
Hel said:
I like this. It’s well-written and an interesting concept. And I always wanted a better ending for ” The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”. But, I have problems with how easily the child trusts the rescuers, and begins to recover from the abuse and trauma. Even within the limits of a short story, and with wanting a happy ending, I think you can do the topic better justice.
J. H. Stevens said:
Thanks, Hel. I think the ending in “Omelas” makes sense for the story, but it can be responded to and discussed, which for me was always the point of it.
I agree that the child would have a hard time trusting his benefactors and that any real healing would take a lot of time. But, partly in the spirit of the story, I condensed complex decisions and processes. For the boy, there is first of all the basic consideration that, for the first time ever, release has been presented. This has never happened before and while that would generate suspicion, it also signals a hope that is unheard of. Having them come into the room, sit with the child, and act to comfort him is an abbreviation of a longer process, and the crying together was an acknowledgement that the system had produced a great amount of suffering and was another summary of what would be a long process of building trust. The very last part of the story might be a fleeting feeling the boy has before his long journey to recovery truly begins, but I wonder how someone would feel if they saw everything that has tormented them fall apart like a crummy illusion? That doesn’t happen in real life, so it occurred to me that it would provide, perhaps only temporarily, a feeling of strange comfort.
I think that there’s a lot more that this story could do if I worked with it, and that is one aspect that could use more development.
TheDoc said:
Thank you for writing this. It’s a story that should be written, and this is an excellent beginning.
Unfortunately, in its current form, it’s just wish-fulfillment.
Really. Rescuers would have to die, and the rescued would never trust them so easily.
It’s all far too pat and easy, and it doesn’t grapple with some of the important themes of “Omelas”. Namely, sacrifice. The evil of Omelas is sacrifice deferred and autonomy stolen. An innocent is forced to suffer so that others can reap rewards they have not sown.
Your reply essentially buys into the fantasy that sacrifice can be wished away— a fantasy that Omelas sells to its citizens. Even as you seek to critique Omelas, you support it, in some partial sense.
For this to be corrected, your story would need to allude to prices paid:
– the price paid by the rescuers;
– the price paid by Omelas, as the scapegoat is saved (and possibly as Omelas is rebuilt);
– the healing of the scapegoat.
These things do not need to be treated with in detail, but they do need to at least be alluded to, I think.
Just my opinion, worth every cent you paid for it.
J. H. Stevens said:
These are all good considerations to ponder. I think that there is more that this story, or one like it, can do, because as you note there are a lot of ramifications to explore. When I wrote this, I had in mind the horrible passivity of the Omelans, and figured that they would be slow to respond because what is happening is beyond their conception, and they have never had to fight for what they have, only acquiesce to it. If you have never had to struggle, just had to accept something awful that is locked away, out of sight, what is there in you that would make you put yourself on the line?
I ended up putting aside the question of costs in the story, partly to move it along, but I agree that finding ways to allude to them and weave them in would strength the story.
Thanks for bringing this stuff up.
Adrian Charles said:
I think it important to note that the dude who witnessed the shower rape didn’t leave Omelas. Rather, he stayed and rose through the administrative ranks!
Omelas is a paradise. Leaving Omelas means that in the face of one’s perceived inability to help an innocent, one voluntarily renounces all benefit associated with the innocent’s suffering.
Leaving Omelas would have meant resigning long ago, and possibly speaking out in public about the abuses witnessed.
J. H. Stevens said:
“Leaving Omelas would have meant resigning long ago, and possibly speaking out in public about the abuses witnessed.”
Indeed, if only someone had done that!
That opens up another fictional angle for responding to the story as well; what if the exiles found that unsure place and told the world what Omelas was doing? What sort of story would that be?
Felix Giron said:
Trying not to repeat comments from above, although largely in agreement with most. I like the flow of this story and the desire to think through what would happen if someone did something besides just leave (which always bothered – and kept me thinking about the story). I also appreciate the channeling of Le Guin’s narrative voice but what I miss in this one is the sense of culpability that she inscribed in me as a reader through her unreliable switching from us to I to them as a narrator in relation to both the citizens of Omelas and me the reader. This version remains in the third person and while 3rd person narration helps build the story’s mythological (almost biblical) flavor, it also creates distance for me. I am also not sure if the more settled ending is “true” to the intended unease of Le Guin’s story – not that I am advocating a continuation of the child’s suffering within the story but the pulverizing of the city (along with the complete hetero/patriarchal family image) seems to also put to an end the moral questions involved in traumatizing others for the sake of own happiness. Perhaps a story with less fortitude on the part of those who went back or an unclear destiny for the city? There is a hint of this in the whisper of the few who welcome their end; might this be extended somewhat? To me the issue of how to treat/respond/punish those who traumatized the child/committed the crime is also perplexing.
J. H. Stevens said:
Felix:
Indeed, I stuck to the 3rd person (although the tenses are a bit messed up) and I agree that putting in some of that POV shifting would heighten the story’s effects. It would be very challenging to work in the culpability factor, because that is one of the things that make Le Guin’s story, and the larger point of it, so powerful and perplexing. I think that it is more complicated to insert into this story because of the essentialization of the two “sides” in hers. What I would end up doing is creating multiple “sides,” at least five of them: citizens who hinder, citizens who help, exiles who act, exiles who pull back, and the child his/herself (I am not wedded to a gender). The trick is to present them without being derailed by them, to maintain the general theme without getting lost in their reactions.
The punishment part is the hardest, because really, what punishment redresses what the Omelans have done? And should there be some for those who went away? How would those factors relate to treating the child? I think this is exactly the kind of questions Le Guin wanted us to ask and that she did not deal with, so that we would have to. This is a bit of a problem in writing this story, in putting ideas and possible resolutions down in visible words. I think the story creates individual responses and any story that tries to tackle the issues comes up against each person’s experience of the story. So it has to be a story that doesn’t try to answer all of the questions, but that tries to give ONE possible answer and continue the discussion and reflection that the original story enlivened in so many people.
Pete. said:
I like much of what you’ve written, despite its rawness; and you’re right, the Ones Who Live In Omelas can offer little resistance, having little experience of strife.
But. The end. The city does not fall. The idea that it will is a MYTH. The Omelans (OmElites?) don’t KNOW that it will; they’ve only been TOLD it will, all their lives (what else does that remind me of, hmmm). After the child is rescued, they must come to the realization that it was held, neglected, tortured, FOR NOTHING; that the City will not fall, that it was all a misunderstanding. THEN, that realization will drive some to anger, some to shame, some to repentance, some to madness. The citizens themselves, those who feel most deeply, will tear the City down, though others of their fellows will fight them. This is the end of the City, not some metaphysical force.
I read ‘Omelas’ years ago and smugly said to myself, “Well, of course I’D be one to walk away”; that is, I would not accept that bargain, but I finally realized that I haven’t walked away, that we live, most of us, in something close to Omelas, that while there are children suffering in vast numbers in the favelas and trash-heaps and battlefields of the world, we live in Omelas and we do not walk away, and the shame is ours.
Then I go read Hemingway’s ‘Earnest Liberal’s Lament’ and drink a bottle of Scotch.
Jade. said:
Hi John, have you revised this further? this is very interesting and I’d love to use this sequel for discussion in one of my English Classes in College, if that is okay with you.
Thank You,
Jade Detroyer
John H. Stevens said:
Jade: Thanks! You are very welcome to use it for discussion. I have not revised it further but I hope to soon. I would like to hear how the discussion goes, so do let me know.