Introduction:
Junior Narrative was a challenging unit that focused on abbreviated story telling. We focused on character creation and fitting all parts of a plot driven story is a small period of time.
I value the time, this unit gave me to explore and execute original stories I would not have had the time or the recourses to create on my own.
English: Flash Fiction
Of Love in The Omelas
“No unnecessary pain or worry will be felt, but each parent will sprout a knot of worry in the appropriate stomach that will only grow”. This is the decree of The Omelas, engraved in the center of the city. This city was perfect, plucked out of the mind of a fairytale reader who barely understood the concepts of sadness or reality.
Everyone could find happiness in The Omelas, but two children had found happiness with each other from an early age. It seemed to the town that Alex and Blaine had been soul mates since they were born. They were both as aesthetically pleasing as any citizen of a pleasantly fantastical town could be expected to be. If a person who was familiar with Disney were to lay eyes on them said person could easily mistake them for princes. They were to be married on their fifteenth birthday, as was the custom in The Omelas. Alex was woken up on that fateful day and raced down the hall to his parents’ bedroom. It felt like his mom took hours to stretch and fuss with the blankets and pillows but maybe that was just because today was going to be so wonderful, if it ever really got started.
Alex opened his mouth to ask her about the exact plans of the day, when she finally got out of bed, but she simply covered his mouth and led him away. Why did she look so sad and why did she drag her feet so much as she lead Alex to the center of the festival grounds. Her knot of worry was about to bloom. People congratulated Alex, as his mother pushed the plaque to the side. Why were they here again? Why are they climbing down here? It’s dark and damp and awful and there’s nothing down here except that door.
The tunnel was so unremarkable that it looked like it belonged in a school hallway, so that fact it was in a dark underground tunnel made the whole situation even more uncomfortable, if that was possible. Horror movie dread curled in Alex’s stomach and he rushed to the window on the door to peer inside since there was nothing else to do. Dead eyes stared back at him. The thing with dead eyes was warped and gnarled, a tree struck with lightning. Yet it pulsed like an engorged vein and was vaguely humanoid, but too small. A child, malnourished and sunlight-deprived, having never felt anything except misery, stared back at Alex.
The only source of light here came from the ceiling of the wretched thing’s home. If one was to squat down so the angle is just right one might see The Omelas in all its glory projected on the ceiling. The thing would stretch a mutilated limb until the tip of the exposed bone was a centimeter or two away from the image and then it would collapse. The image would change to a baker just barely brushing a pan fresh out of the oven and the thing would convulse with the pain of a accidental burn. A pin stuck a seamstress finger and the thing screamed.
Alex ran. As he processed what he had seen the knot of worry had lived and died within his mother. He tore away as fast as he could to the one place he could go. The wall protecting The Omelas had a crack in it that only a tear soaked person could slip through. Just as Alex’s hand pulled the first hunk of stone away so he could pass through, an arm caught his. Let me go! Alex was so sure Blaine would do the same if they only knew, so sure, until he wasn’t. Alex was pulled back to two weeks ago when Blaine was crying. Just crying. Why was he crying, and blubbering about weddings through tears that streamed through his eyes and nose. Their birthdates. Their birthdates were separated by an easily forgettable two weeks.
When soulmates break their bond at least one must fall into infinite misery. Blaine collapsed as Alex walked away from paradise. When Blaine opened his eyes the beauty of The Omelas shinned down, just a few centimeter out of reach. A child quietly shut a nondescript door with a window in it.