|
| The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
By: Ursula Le Guin
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 assumptions. Given a description such as this one tends to look next for the King, mounted on a splendid stallion and surrounded by his noble 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 advertisement, the secret police, and the bomb. Yet I repeat that these were not simple folk, not dulcet shepherds, noble 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 banality 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, passionate 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, assuming 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 godhead 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 not 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 sex beyond 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 procession 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 passing 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 grass 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 basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious 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 nobody will come. The door is always locked; and nobody 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 buttocks and thighs are a mass 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 compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes possible the nobility 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 pass 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. | | |
| About a week ago my brother Eric offered me to join a pact. I was over my parent's house for something, possibly somebody's birthday. With as many relatives as I have all the birthdays, first communions, and anniversaries blend together. I personally maintain that if my family celebrated every occassion my father would be drunk year round.
But at this particular event my oldest brother ventured on a new topic of discussion that kept the event stuck in my mind: the pact. "A pact?"
"Yeah ass-jam, it's like one of those marriage agreements that people make."
"You mean, like those agreements that if two people aren't married by a certain age, they'll marry each other?"
"Yeah."
"Eric, uh, yeah, ummm, yeah, I'm flattered, I guess. But, yeah, but there are three very large problems with me and you getting married."
"Stop being gay, I don't want to marry you."
"I mean for one thing you're my brother, for another if you weren't my brother I'd probabally hate you, and aren't neither of us gay?"
"Exactly, and this pact is designed to keep us from going gay."
"By marrying each other?"
"No you fag! I'm not going to marry you!"
"Well then aren't you being just a bit of a tease?"
"You stupid queer! Just shut up and listen. Paul, Justin, and I all made a pact that said if one of us turned gay the other two would kill him and there would be no hard feelings. It would be seen as a mercy kill. We want to know if you want to join it."
"So why did you ask to marry me?"
"NO! you stupid homo! I don't want to marry you! I want to kill you!"
"You have a very violent sort of love, you know that?"
" I'm your brother! I don't love you!"
"Wel, that's a bit rough," I replied.
"No homo, I do love you, just don't tell anyone I love you though, because I don't LOVE you."
"That made way too much sense."
Our conversation carried on like this for a while, Eric stumbling over social interaction, me being too intoxicated to not make fun of Eric for it, when finally, very disappointed, Eric gave up on trying to get me to sign the pact. In the end I did not join under the grounds that I hardly thought I'd be able to not hold a grudge against my murderer no matter how much I had agreed not to prior.
As you may see, my brother is a complicated man. He has always been an extremely religious Catholic, incredibly devoted family member, and lastly, a very proud militray veteran. Such a man would be so hard to not respect if only he learned to keep his mouth shut at all times. He obsesses over women but is too nervous to hit on the women he is attracted to and considers every women who likes him, which is a surprisingly substantial number, beneath him. He has turned every ethnicity away for some reason or another, the ex-stripper hadn't quite kicked the smoking habit yet, the asian woman owned a cat, the Miss Australia finalist (no exaggeration) had been slightly liberal in her beliefs.
But for all his short comings, one can never deny him his sense of honor. I have seen him unwrap himself from a drunk woman's embrace and get her a glass of water and a sandwich to help her sober up. For a very long time no one could understand why he was broke after a deployment till we finally learned that he had given most of his pay to the orphans he met, the only remenants of one of China's genocides. But by the same token, he wishes he could genocide anybody in a relationship that cannot create orphans. Maybe he just has a great love for orphans.
In the war he was his group's chaplain and carried communion wafers in a small round, ribbed container in his wallet so that he could offer up salvation on the spot whenever a lost soul needed it. I can only imagine how the brothels went over with him. All the sailors like himself coupling off with whores and he left alone at the bar with one. The asian pulling him close, slipping out his wallet, seeing the round ring jutting out the side, and saying: "So G.I. has protection?"
"Oh, always. I carry it in its most ultimate form. Are, are you interested in my prix?"
"You funny G.I. I very interested in your pryk. I like that you have condomn G.I."
"No, all I've got is what I want to give you, my prix."
"Yes, and I wants your pryk, but G.I. needs protection."
"If you want my prix all you need to do is open your mouth and you will be protected."
"Ok G.I., but that cost 5 dollar extra."
"I'm not going to PAY you to swallow my prix! That's so gay! It's borderline sacreligious!"
"You WILL pay me to swallow your pryk or no swallowing's going to happen at all!"
"I will NOT pay you to swallow my prix! You're lucky I came all the way here to offer it to you! I'm practically a missionary here!"
"You come in here with protection and ready to go but with no will to pay G.I.! You want swallow, you pay!"
"That's so gay! You're so gay! You know what? I'm taking myself and my prix back to the ship where I KNOW a few people willing to swallow it for free!"
"That's so gay, G.I. | | |
| Today I hung out with some guys I hadn't seen since high school. In the course of 12 hours they smoked three or four bowls of reefer. The times certain have changed. By no means do I mean to advocate that they were once somethnig resembling innocent, but their current drug habit made their previously known one seem very innocent. The final time they smoked that day I was in the room with them. Funny thing about hot boxes, they get you high whether you want to or not. You know those anti-smoking adds that claim that when someone smokes in a resteraunt everyone else smokes half their cigarette? I'm pretty sure now that they weren't making that up entirely. I finally felt like a true liberal arts major.
So we went to McDonalds since they were broke. All the good pot heads are broke. At the fountain drink machine Elliot could not decide what beverage to choose. I told him to go with coke, because at that moment coca cola tasted like carbonated joy, ten thousand bubbles rushing inside my mouth like the tiniest angels you could ever swallow. I drank from the sacred plastic cup. I drank deep. I had finally found religion. I was finally nourished. It quenched my thirst and the emptiness in my chest. I burped. "Man, it's not coka cola, it's coka-DELICIOUS."
Elliot said, "I don't drink soda." What? What was this blasphemy?
"I haven't drank it in years," he explained. "It made me piss blood. Besides Pepsi was always better." In the name of the father, son, and, holy Sprite, What The Hell? He was the antichrist to the Roman Catholicola Church. I stared at him. Hadn't he seen the commercials? Of course he had seen the commercials. He knew which one was the right one baby. He was a warrior of a corporate jihad. And he would have to be stopped.
"You ok Nathan? Fucking cool it. You look like you're going paranoid." Whinfrey whispered to me.
"Really Elliot? Blood?"
"Yeah, I was drinking so much soda it was destroying my kidney." You mother fucking lieing liar. I refilled my chalice.
"Sounds painful."
"Yeah it was. Hence why I don't drink soda anymore."
"Maybe it was just the soda you were drinking. I hear Pepsi does that. Coke's great though. You should really try it."
"No, I'm pretty sure any soda taken in the kind of quantity I was chugging it would have that kind of effect." The poor man. He not only needed coke, he needed a santa pack. Don't worry lost one, the santa pack is coming.
"Well, only one way to find out if other kinds of soda could destroy your kidneys, and that's to try."
"Thanks but I'd rather not take the chance."
"Are you sure? I mean, think it out. Even if your kidneys began bleeding again, think of how much fun donating blood would be!"
"You're a sick man Nathan." I drank deep from The Chalice hoping for a rebuttal when my phone rang.
"Hey Nate-Wheezy."
"Hey Scott-Dizzle."
"How you doing?"
"Great now that you're here."
"And you know what Papa likes to hear."
"And, and.... we're not gay right?"
"Yeah, this is just sexually ambigious banter. We can can do this because we are both comfortable in our respecitive sexualities."
"Yes we are! What are those again?"
"We are, my good friend, sexual type: awesome." This really is how we talk.
"Heh heh, yeah, we are awesome. We really are. So what the hell can I do you for old buddy?" Notice the constant strain to remain perfectly friendly. This is the trademark of every successful housemate relationship. We used to try poisoning each other's food, now we drown each other in affirming bullshit. We could put the Japanese to shame. Not to mention politicians. I'd compare us to the next step, Japanese politicains, but I've never met one or seen one on the discovery channel. And Atlas, if you're reading this, I never tried poisoning you yet. I PROMISE.
"Well, the lady and I were planning on celebrating steak and blow job day tonight."
"So you need the house."
"Well, I'm not saying that. I'd never kick you out of your own house."
"But you'd like me to not be there."
"No, no, no, It's going to happen either way. I just thought you'd want to know."
"So I can plan on not being there."
"Well... yes. I guess so. That's if you don't mind old sport."
"How about this ole' chum; why don't you tell me when you tihnk you'll be done?"
"Well good buddy, I think she'll be getting here for dinner at around eight, so I guess it will be somewhere in the neighborhood of from anytime from ten till midnight."
"So you're getting a blow job from ten till midnight you rascal you."
"Yes sir. It'll be a long two hours. Thanks for this champ."
"Not a problem, not a problem at all. Go get 'em tiger."
"It's appreciated good buddy."
"And so are you."
"Aww, you're sweet."
"As sugar. I'll see ya around."
"But not before midnight."
"Perish the thought of it. Austa lavista."
"Baby."
This springboarded our table into the exact mechanics of the Steak and Blowjob day holiday. For those who don't know, it's celebrated March 14th and it's purpose is to be the man's valentine's day. Instead of roses and chocolate he gets a steak and a willing act of felatio from his loved one. Coreland was distraught as he and his girl friend had forgotten the holiday.
"Damn. I really love that day."
"Well you can still have it," I said.
"How so?" he replied.
"Just celebrate it late."
"But she'll blame me for missing it."
"Not if you blame her first."
"Genious," said Whinfrey.
"Isn't it? Consider: not many women come straight up to their men and say, 'Happy Valentine's Day' on that holiday because they are secretely waiting to see two things. First if the man remembered and secondly to allow the man to hatch any well planned surprises," I explained.
"So you want him to play the same game?" inquired Elliot.
"Exactly," I responded.
"I get it. I Casually mention my disappointment that she never came through on my valentine's day. Then when she apologizes, give her the chance to make it up," Coreland said.
"You got it," I replied. A parent loudly cleared his throat in our direction. We looked over to see his children starring at us and clearly eavesdropping. Whinfrey blushed.
"But what if she HAD given me a blow job on that day?" Coreland continued.
"Has she ever cooked you a steak?"
"No. No she has not! She only sucked my-" Right then another parent loudly coughed. Another had covered his child's ears. Whinfrey, his face red and puffy from blushing, mouthed that he was sorry.
"But I"m a vegetarian," Elliot said.
"Well then thank god I'm not trying to get you a steak and blow job now am I?" I retorted.
Right then a little boy no older than six went up to the counter and said to the clerk loudly, "I got a girl's toy in my happy meal." Our entire table erupted into giggles.
"Well, you act like a bitch you're gonna play like a bitch," Coreland whispered. We erupted into laughter. Little is more funny than marajuana induced inexusably ill mannered humor at a small child's expense.
"But anyways,"Coreland said, "I don't even think my girlfriend knows about steak and blow job day."
"Well in that case I don't think you missed it. I actually think it's always been held March 30th." Elliot optioned.
"Guys, can't we call it Steak and Felatio Day or something?" Whinfrey asked.
"Apologies Whinfrey. We'll try to be better mannered. You truly are a voice of reason." Elliot said. "So, if we're playing with the dates already why not go further. We could have Steak and Felation day more often. How awesome would it be to be promised by the Hallmark Corporation that on a specific day every month your girlfriend would suck your dick?" One of the parents slammed thier hand on thier table. Whinfrey hung his head.
"Great idea in spirit, but I don't think we could convince her that it was every month. I just don't think it would fly." I said
"How about every other month?" Coreland asked.
"Bi-monthly is too unheard of," Elliot responded. "Once a season is where the money is."
"Ooooooh, I like that. Tell her it's seasonal." I agreed. "That way we can even think up neat little names for each one like, 'Autumn Tea Bags'." A little boy at a nearby table snickered. His mother smacked the back of his head.
"Seems like the idea is going over well," Elliot said.
"So it's decided then. Can we please leave before we get kicked out?" Whinfrey asked. | | |
| The University of Cincinnati recently established a bus transport system for those students who had to park over a mile away from campus because they did not have the trust fund required to purchase a parking garage pass. This was done not to help convience the students but to help raise student revenue in the failing football program since polls showed an alarming amount of the student fanbase were foregoing home games in favor to cross country races after only a few quarters of being forced to park the average three to thirty miles off campus.
Every morning co-eds could be seen with their book bags strapped to their backs to control balance and in jogging shorts and sneakers stretching by their parked cars getting ready to try to get to class in a new record of under three hours. Concerned sympathetic citizens were known to keep water stations along the main roads with rest areas under the tress for the students who got cramped or tried to venture the distance hung over or on medication. It was not till a pregnant woman, with no other course of action avialable to her, attempted the distance and consequentially lost her child that the bus system became an actuality.
So during the morning hours that most students arrive for classes buses roam the streets prowling for pedestrians to usher to campus. One such morning I was headed to biology and working into my second wind that the bus got me. The driver promised he could get me there in time for the next semester and so I eagerly boarded. I was the first. Let it be known here that many came after, but I was the first.
As I stretched my calves to head off soreness and took my seat the driver began explaining the operation and his dreams to one day completely eradicate the growing Univeristy of Cincinnati Marathon Runner's Union. He was an older man with wise, set eyes and a large beard the color of aged wheat. As he drove he began teaching me the history of the university, but there was something wrong with his pronounciation. Certain words would stretch into three to six times their original length; it was like his tongue was a needle playing on a broken record.
"When I was young this was aaaallllllllll hay feilds. Hay feilds as far as the eeeeeyyyyyeeeeeee could see."
We were almost at campus and picking up more students when suddenly, when only a block away from the college, he turned off on a side street and started heading away. Had we missed our stop we wandered? Had the driver gone senile? After a few awkward moments a brave student named Allister asked him if he perhaps skipped the drop off point.
"Weeeeeeeee haven't even gotten tooooooo the drop off point yet yooooouunnnngsteeer," the driver said. And with that the man continued with his lecture on the history the university's lunch program.
Time progressed and The Bus hadn't reached a drop off point yet. Class were missed as we hatched rudimentary escape plans. When the driver caught us attempting to block his view the enormous multi-window "HELP!" sign we were flashing at other cars the sagely smile dropped. The facade that had lured us onto The Bus was over. Allister claimed that it had been all his idea and no one else had taken part in it. He was dealt with severely.
As the days went by our numbers grew as The Bus gained more captives. We had memorized the driver's lines and methods of abuduction. A peaceful and happy co-ed with a promising future and great head of hair would be headed to class whistling a merry Gershwin tune that only a song bird could hope to match when they slowly became aware of the presence following them. They would stop whistling and look over and see a large charter bus painted red and white and emblazoned with the UC mascot driving along side them. They would turn their heads and stare at the ground then begin walking faster, The Bus would keep pace. He or she would stop walking altogether and the bus would suddenly halt too. Then right as they prepared themselves to run for it The Driver would open the door of The Bus and say his one of his lines. Sometimes he offered candy but most of the time opted for "Cooooooommmmme on in! This is the neeeeeeeeeeew bus transport system for yooooouuu stuudents."
Relieved, the student would smile and climb aboard. Once inside, the doors slammed shut quickly enough to cut off limbs and The Driver would hurtle The Bus further down the never ending route. Everytime this happened those of us who were already on the bus would bury our heads in silent shame at our cowardice. We never blamed one another or spoke of it, but we all knew, each time The Driver obtained another commuter for The Bus a peice of all of us died. Once Allister could no longer take it and jumped out of his seat and yelled, "Run! Don't get on! You'll never make it to class on time in this thing! There is no drop off point!" The woman suddenly startled looked at Allister in bewilderment then back to The Driver. The Driver's face turned a shade of sour and slammed the door in the woman's face and peeled off down the street.
"A heeerrrrroooooooo," The Driver mused. We never saw Allister after that, but many years later I personally went to his widow's home and spoke of the man's courage to his only child.
It is important to note that The Driver did not see The Bus as a tool or even as an ally. They we bitter enemies constantly engaged in their own war. The battles were fought with the radio as The Driver searched for victims. For the most part the radio worked well, pleasing The Driver, but occasionally static would distort the music. The Driver would reach up to the controls and thumb a nob and as soon as his arm reached up to the antennas the static would cut out. Pleased, The Driver would lower his hand, but as soon as his hand was lower than the antenna the static would come back. Slightly irritated but not out done, The Driver would reach back up to the antenna and thumb a nob and again instantly the radio righted itself. "Daaaaaaaamn riiight," he could hear The Driver mutter. But again, as soon as his hand was lower than the antenna the static came back redoubled! The smile only grew on The Driver's face in appreciation of his clever foe. He began to lift his arm up again but before his hand could even reach the nob the static stopped, but once he began to lower his arm the static came back. The Driver became alarmed and awestruck. "Iiiiiit's seeeennnntieeeennnnt," he whsipered in fear. He slowly lowered his arm and the static resumed. He began to whistle, pretended look for prey while really to eyeing the radio to see whether or not it appeared off gaurd. Suddnely he threw his arm up to the nob and the static cut out. He smiled and lowered his arm. The static came back. Infuriated now he raised his arm, lowered his arm, raised his arm, lowered his arm, faster and faster trying to beat the static but to no avail. Passing truckers saw the movement and sounded their horns. Finally fuming and angrier than we had ever seen him, he roared, "Iiiiiiiiifff you wannnt tooo play thaaaat gammmme, youuuu geeeeet the deeeathhhh!" and he would slam his hand on the off swtich and drive on so angry he began passing willing pedestrians. After a long, stale silence his smile slwoly would return and we could see him victoriously eyeing the radio and musing, "Heeeeee giiivveethhh and heee taakkkethh awaaaaay," he told himself.
I still remember the day we finally got to the drop off point for the bus. I had just woken up and the usual gossip was being whispered around.
"Sebastian swears he knows a way to open the doors if we can somehow distract The Driver."
"That would never work, but I have heard that the army may set up a roadblock to free us."
"And where did you hear that Norman?"
"Michael swears it!"
"Michael also still believes Allister will come back."
I listened to the now ancient philosophical argument over the pros and cons of attempting to climb out the windows while others preached the religous belief that on the given day the now legendary Allister would return and drive us himself to our classes. I was shaving my straggly beard with a razor crafted by sharpening one edge of a belt buckle when suddenly The Bus stopped in front of the main building.
"Heeeeeeeere you gooooo!" The Driver said merrily opening the doors. No one knew what to do. Was it some trick? Limbs had been hewn by those very doors. No one wished to be the first to test them now.
"Doooon't be sssshy!" The Driver merrily chimed. Not knowing what else to do we quickly grabbed the most dispensible amongst us and lead him to the door. Poor little Norman kept crying and trying to turn away but we refused to let him back down.
"No please! Don't take me over there!"
"Come on you pansy! If it works you'll be a hero!" we urged.
"I don't want to be a hero! No! Let go! PLEASE! NO!"
But it was too late, we pushed Norman up and through the door. We all closed our eyes waiting for an orgy of blood and hewn limbs to unsue. When no screams were heard we looked out and saw Norman laying fetal on the ground outside of The Bus weeping incontrollably an wetting himself. We did not waste time on surprise, but instead we all barreled out of The Bus and into the sunsine. After our eyes adjusted we went our seperate ways and never spoke to one another again. | | |
| You may have seen this before, but I'm going to post my favorites because they crack me up.
1. Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
2. Chuck Norris counted to infinity - twice.
3. When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
4. Chuck Norris is a God-fearing man. Unfortunately, God is a Chuck Norris-fearing god.
5. The Dinosaurs looked at Chuck Norris the wrong way once. ONCE.
6. Chuck Norris is currently suing NBC, claiming Law and Order are trademarked names for his left and right legs.
7. The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
8. When Chuck Norris sends in his taxes, he sends blank forms and includes only a picture of himself, crouched and ready to attack. Chuck Norris has not had to pay taxes ever.
9. Chuck Norris has already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life there.
10. If at first you don't succeed, you're obviously not Chuck Norris.
11. Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
12. Chuck Norris died ten years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.
13. Chuck Norris lost his virginity before his dad did.
14. Superman owns a pair of Chuck Norris pajamas.
15. Chuck Norris can touch MC Hammer.
16. Before he forgot a gift for Chuck Norris, Santa Claus was real.
17. Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.
18. Chuck Norris' action figure has slept with more women then most men.
19. Chuck Norris owns the greatest Poker Face of all-time. It helped him win the 1983 World Series of Poker despite him holding just a Joker, a Get out of Jail Free Monopoloy card, a 2 of clubs, 7 of spades and a green #4 card from the game UNO.
19. A Handicap parking sign does not signify that this spot is for handicapped people. It is actually in fact a warning, that the spot belongs to Chuck Norris.
20. Chuck Norris clogs the toilet even when he pisses.
21. Chuck Norris has a word for a person he puts into a coma; that word is "lucky".
22. Chuck Norris can unscramble an egg.
23. A recent poll discovered 93% of women think about Chuck Norris during sex. A similar poll discovered Chuck Norris thinks about Chuck Norris 100% of the time during sex.
24. Chuck Norris can make a woman climax by simply pointing at her and saying "booya".
25. Chuck Norris doesn't have to do anything for a Klondike bar.
26. Chuck Norris was the fourth Wiseman. He brought baby Jesus the gift of "beard". Jesus wore it proudly to his dying day.
27. Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
28. After much debate, President Truman decided to drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima rather than the alternative of sending Chuck Norris. His reasoning? It was more "humane".
29. One time in an airport a guy accidently called Chuck Norris "Chick Norris". He explained it was an honest mistake and apologized profusely. Chuck accepted his apology and politely signed an autograph. Nine months later, the guy's wife gave birth to a bearded baby. The guy knew exactly what had happened, and blames nobody but himself.
30. Chuck Norris always has sex on the first date. Always.
31. On Neil Armstrong's second step on the moon, he found a note that said, "Chuck Norris was here."
32. Chuck Norris challenged a statue to a staring contest. Chuck remains undefeated.
33. Trix are for Chuck Norris.
34. The easiest way to determine Chuck Norris' age is to cut him in half and count the rings. | | |
|
