Welcome
John William Tuohy lives in Washington DC
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. 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 women, small, fat, and laughing, is passing out flowers from a basket, and tall young men where 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 halfbowl 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 fluteplayer, 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.
The beauty of lost world
B&W
Fox 8 by George Saunders
Deer Reeder:
First may I say, sorry for any werds I spel rong. Because I am
a fox! So
don't rite or spel perfect. But here is how I lerned to rite
and spel as gud as I
do!
One day, walking neer one of your Yuman houses, smelling all
the interest
with snout, I herd, from inside, the most amazing sound. Turns
out, what that
sound is, was: the Yuman voice, making werds. They sounded
grate! They
sounded like prety music! I listened to those music werds
until the sun went
down, when all of the suden I woslike: Fox 8, crazy nut, when
sun goes
down, werld goes dark, skedaddle home, or else there can be
danjer!
But I was fast and nated by those music werds, and desired to
understand
them total lee.
1
So came bak nite upon nite, seeted upon that window, trying to
lern. And
in time, so many werds came threw my ears and into my brane,
that, if I
thought upon them, cud understand Yuman prety gud, if I heer
it!
What that lady in that house was saying, was: Storys, to her
pups, with
"luv." When done, she wud dowse the lite, causing
dark. Then, due to feeling
"luv," wud bend down, putting snout and lips to the
heds of her pups, which
was called: "gudnite kiss." Which I got a kik out of
that! Because that is also
how we show our luv for our pups, as Foxes! It made me feel
gud, like
Yumans cud feel luv and show luv. In other werds, hope full
for the future of
Erth!
But one nite I herd something that made me think twise about
Yumans.
And I still am.
What I herd was a Story, but a fawlse and even meen one. In
that story
was a Fox. But guess what the Fox was? Sly! Yes, true lee! He
trikked a
Chiken! He lerd this plump Chiken away from its henhowse,
darning there is
some feed in a stump. We do not trik Chikens! We are very open
and honest
with Chikens! With Chikens, we have a Super Fare Deel, which
is: they make
the egs, we take the egs, they make more egs. And sometimes
may even eat a
live Chiken, shud that Chiken consent to be eaten by us, threw
faling to run
away upon are approche, after she has been looking for feed in
a stump.
Not Sly at all.
Very strate forword.
That Story was also fawlse due to the mane Chiken is whering
glases.
Which, Chikens that I know of? Do not where glases. I do not
think this is
because all Chikens see grate. I think it is because Chikens
do not even know
when they don't see grate, due to, altho I have the highest
respek for Chikens,
luvving their egs, they are perchanse not the britest.
But Chikens whering glases was not the only fawlse Story I
herd.
Like I herd Storys about Bares, in which Bares are always
sleeping and
nise and luvving. Beleev me, as someone offen chased by Bares,
never was a
Bare chasing me (1) asleep or (2) nise and (3) luvving. You
shud heer the
many not-nise things a Bare is saying, in Bare, as he is
chasing you, as lukily
you slide into your Den just in the nack of time and try not
to start crying in
front of your other Foxes.
And in terms of Owls, Owls are wise? Don't make me laff! Once
a Owl
nipped Fox 6 kwite crool on his nek just because Fox 6 was
saying a frend
lee greeting to the baby Owls with his snout!
2
For a long time, no one but me knew I knew Yuman. Then one
day, as
faith will have it, I am walking threw the wuds with Fox 7, a
gud pal, when
all of the suden a branch drops down on us from upon hi.
And I woslike: O wow.
But said not in Fox, but in Yuman.
Fox 7 was so shokked he just sat with haunch on ground and
tung lolling
out, along with the wide eyes of being complete lee astonish.
To which I said: Correct, what I just now spoke, was Yuman,
dude.
And he woslike: That is prety gud, Fox 8.
To which I woslike, in Yuman, to perhaps show off slite: It is
super gud,
no dowt, Fox 7.
And he woslike: We must tell our Grate Leeder. This is soTo
which, in Fox, I woslike: I know, rite?
So we went to our Grate Leedler, Fox 28, and I spoke him some
Yuman.
When I had spoken my Yuman, Grate Leeder turned his hed
sidewise the
way us Foxes do when feeling quizmical or a noise is hi, and
said: Fox 8,
how did you akomplish this?
I woslike: By studying their speech patterns every nite
without fale.
He woslike: Perhaps you wud be gud enough to use your new skil
to help
the Groop?
I was kwite flatered by this show of respek from Grate Leeder,
famus
among us for wize consel, plus always leeding us grate.
I woslike: Hapy to help.
Grate Leeder woslike: Folow me, Fox 8.
Which I did, shooting Fox 7 a prowd look of: Dude, chek me
out.
Soon we are standing before a sine, and upon that sine are
some Yuman
letters like the ones I had been lerning. And thanks to my
studies, I cud reed
it. (Lukily, I had lerned their alphabet, by skwinting my
eyes, threw that
window, at their buks.)
What those werds said, is: Coming soon, FoxViewCommons.
I red them to Grate Leeder, who, bak in are Den, said them
alowd to the
Groop.
Those werds caused many suden questions in all our branes.
Such as:
What is a FoxViewCommons?
Wud it chase us? Wud it eat us?
Terns out, it cud not eat us. It cud not chase us. But what it
cud do, was
even werse.
3
Because soon here came Truks, smoking wile tooting! They dug
up our
Primary Forest! They tore out our Leaning Tree! They rekked
our shady
drinking spot, and made total lee flat the highest plase of
which we know,
from where we can see all of curashun if it is not raning!
Whoa was us.
As far as we cud see, it is just flat, no trees. Upon troting
to our River, we
found it rekked due to so much suden dirt floting in. Also rekked
were are
Fish who, not even swoping a single flipper, just glansed up
blank at us, like:
Wow, we do not even get what just hapened.
Wile trying to explane it was Truks that hapened, we lerned
one reason
they cud not swope a flipper is, they are ded! Plus not only
are our Fish ded,
but all the things we luv to eat, such as Bugs, such as fat
slow Mise, are total
lee gone! We serched all day, snouts low. But not one snak.
Soon sevral of our Extreme Lee Old Foxes become sik, and ded,
because:
no fud. These ded frends were: Fox 24, Fox 10, and Fox 111.
Gud Foxes all.
One leson I lerned during my nites at that Yuman window was: a
gud riter
will make the reeder feel as bad as the Yuman does in there
Story. Like the
riter will make you feel as bad as Sinderela. You will feel
sad you cannot go
to the danse. And mad you have to sweep. You will feel like
biting
Stepmother on her Gown. Or, if you are Penokio, you will feel
like: I wud
rather not be made of wud. I wud rather be made of skin, so my
father Jipeta
will stop hitting me with a hamer. And so farth.
If you want to feel as bad as we Foxes are feeling at this
time: (1) bare lee
eat for weeks, (2) note that many frends, including you, are
getting skinyer
every day, and (3) watch sevral of your beluvved frends get so
skiny they die.
At this time, Grate Leeder grew kwite sad. It was like he grew
too sad to leed.
And wud sit for hours staring into spase. It woslike Grate
Leeder blamed
himself that we had lost are Forest in which we had always
lived since time
in memorial. But we did not feel it was his fawlt. It hapened
so fast, who cud
have been grate enough to stop it? (I for sure did not know
how to stop it.
Once I sn uk into the bak of a Truk and stole there hamer with
my mouth. I
know it is not gud to steel but I was so mad! But me steeling
that hamer did
not even slow them down. They must have had other hamers?)
Finally some of us went to Grate Leeder and are like: Grate
Leeder, let us
go farth and find some fud, plus a better plase to live.
4
But he just did this mone, and woslike: No, no, it is too
danjerus.
Everyone stay rite here where I can see you.
And once again plased bed between paws.
Week upon week the Truks kep werking. These Yumans sure cud
werk.
They werked and werked until soon a hole forest is gone. How
did they do it?
With there hands, plus Truks.
Terns out, what they were making is: sevral big wite boxes,
with, written
upon them, mistery werds.
Upon my reeding of these werds, my felow Foxes looked at me
all
quizmical, like: Fox 8, tell us, what is Bon-Ton, what is
Compu-Fun, what is
Hooters, what is Kookies-N-Cream?
But I cud not say, those werds never being herd by me at my
Story
window.
FoxViewCommons seemed to be a plase Yumans came to put there
Kars.
They wud go into the wite boxes and wate there until there
Kars were redy to
go home? Sometimes I wud go up to a Kar, inside of which there
is a Dog,
and, due to speeking decent Dog, wud be like: How's it going?
To which the
Dog wud either look blank at me, as if I was not even speeking
Dog, or fling
themself around inside there Kar, as if they wud like to brake
out and do
damage to me, a Fox!
But finally one Dog does answer, going: Prety gud, how about
you? It is
reely hot in here.
And I woslike: Frend, what is this plase?
He woslike: Par King.
I woslike: What is it for?
At which point he took a paws to lik his but. Wile I polite
lee wated.
Finally he woslike: The Mawl.
I woslike: But what is the purpose of the Mawl?
By this time, however, he is asleep. With legs running, yet
stil traped in
that Kar, probly dreeming he is a Fox, with Fox lee freedom,
and less pudgee.
But he was rite: it was Par King, it was the Mawl. Yumans wud
go: You
kids stop fiting, we're at the Mawl, kwit, kwit it, if you
don't stop fiting how
wud you like it if we just skip the Mawl and you can get rite
to your
aljuhbruh, Kerk? Or, speeking into a small box, a Yuman mite
go, I have to
run, Jeenie, I'm just now Par King at the Mawl! Or one Yuman
slaps the but
of a sekond, and the slapt one leens in, kwite fond, going,
Elyut, you kil me.
Or a lady drops her purse and bends to retreev her guds, when
sudden lee her
hat blows away, at which time, speeking a bad werd, she looks
redy to sit and
5
cry, own lee a nise man appeers, and rases off in kwest of her
hat, tho he has
a slite limp.
Yumans!
Always intresting.
One day I am krowching at the edge of Par King, gazing over at
the Mawl,
when out comes a pare of Yumans.
One woslike: OK, I will meet you at the Fud Cort when you are
done with
your lip waks.
And the other woslike: If you are late I will total lee kill
you, Meggen.
And the other woslike: Don't worry, I'll find you. You'll be
the one with the
way red lip.
Then they laffed.
That frase of "Fud Cort" prikked up my ears but gud.
Mite there be fud in a Fud Cort?
There mite, I felt.
Here I shud say, all my life, I have had kwite curative
day-dreems. They
wud just come upon me. And I wud enjoy them.
With some favrits being:
Some Yumans heer me speeking Yuman so gud they give me some
Chiken, and I sit rite at there Table.
And they go: How is it being a Fox?
And I go: Fine.
And they go: Foxes are our favrit Animal.
And I go: Thanks.
And they go: Why o why were we so stupid as to choose Dogs for
our
mane Pets?
And I go: I reely don't know.
Or: Some Bares are chasing me. I stop and, holding one paw
aleft, give
them a speech about being nise, and they are like: Maybe this
is weerd to ask,
but cud you, a Fox, be our Grate Leeder, and teech us to be
nise and not walk
funy? And I go: Sure. And they applawd with their paws. But
awkword. So I
teech them to clap gud and they look at me with luv.
Or: Some Berds fly around my hed, going: What a prety Fox, we
have
flown everywhere in this werld and never seen one pretier! And
one Berd
goes: And smart too. And the others churp there agreement.
Now, krowching neer Par King, I had a curative day-dreem,
about Fud
Cort, which was: Go in, get some fud. Why not? How hard cud it
be? If there
is fud, it shud be fud for all, rite?
6
That nite, at Groop Meeting, I brot farth my plan.
But sad lee, my somewhat reputashun as a dreemer preseded me.
And not in a gud way.
Grate Leeder woslike: What is Fud Cort anyway? Sounds
danjerus.
I woslike: Yumans are nise, they are cul.
And Fox 41 woslike, all snoty: O rite! Very funy! I'm sure we
are going to
trust the same Fox who once darned he went to Collage with
some Baby!
Fox 41 bringing up that Baby was so not cul.
Once, long ago, at that Story window, I day-dreemed those
Yumans
invited me in and let me hold there Baby. And that Baby luvved
me so much,
we soon jerneyed to Collage together, whering are little
Collage Hats! It was
grate! At Collage we lerned such Yuman skils as Werking
Machines, and
How to Play a Violin Complete Lee Screechy.
But when I came home and told my Foxes about going to Collage
with
that Baby, they did not beleev me. To proov it, I desided to
show them my
Collage Hat.
Which was when I remembered I had day-dreemed the hole thing.
The only Collage Hat I had was in my brane!
Tray embarasing.
So that is why, in Groop Meeting, Grate Leeder woslike: No,
Fox 8. No
Mawl. Gud input tho.
I terned to my other Foxes and woslike: Guys, pleese suport me
on this.
But fownd the eyes of my other Foxes lolling up at the
seeling.
Fox 4 woslike: No ofense, Fox 8? Your ideas are not super
praktikal.
Dreem, dreem, dreem, said Fox 11.
Fox 41 woslike: Fox 8, does this honestly never get old for
you?
Grate Leeder woslike: I have spoken.
And something in me woslike: Grate Leeder, bla.
I stillluwed him but it woslike he was not being all that
Grate. Or even a
Leeder. I meen no disrespek.
It was just a strong feeling in my hart that it was no gud for
Foxes to give
up and just be ded on perpose.
All that nite I cud not sleep for beens. But just lay awake,
looking sad lee
around at all my sleeping Foxes. And woslike, in my brane:
Frends, you do
not look so gud. The hare of your cotes is manjee. You are
needy all eyes, due
to: super hungry. Your sides are like heeving in your sleep.
Deer Foxes! You
have known me sinse, as a Pup, I tryed to bite my own face in
our River. You
knew me bak when, daydreeming, I stepped in Poop of Wolf and
brot it bak
7
inside the Den, causing everyone to rinkle their snouts, going
like: Fox 8,
jeez, how cud you not smell Poop of Wolf when it is rite on
your own dang
paw?
But you forgave me, and when I had got most of the Poop off,
by rubing
against a tree, even helped me lik myself all the way gud.
And sinse I luv you, shud I not do my best to save you?
Hense I desided to go alone.
And next morning set off for the Mawl.
You may have herd the Yuman frase, What are frends for? Well,
I will tell
you. Frends are for, when your hole Groop terns its baks on
you, here comes
your frend, Fox 7, of who I spoke of erlyer, as being the
first Fox I ever spoke
Yuman to, troting up beside you.
He woslike: I'll go with you, Fox 8.
I woslike: Dude.
He gave this small shrug, like: No big deel.
We troted awile in gud cheer. Soon here was the Mawl. Cud we
kros Par
King? We cud. And did.
Here is how you do it:
8
Take a deep breth. Look left and look rite, very vigrus.
Careful, careful.
Go. Go go go! Do not even paws.
FoxViewCommons is now bowncing, because you are galupping so
fast.
A Kar almost gets you! Do a panic-yip. Stop. Take a slite
brake under
another Kar. Try to go. Too bad, you can't. Too skared! Do a
miner worry-yip.
Go!
Paws!
Look again, look again. Go. Stop! Look again.
Just reely buk it!
You made it!
And are not ded.
But now there was a problem we had not mulled, which is: a
Dore. Dores
being a problem for Foxes, due to being hevy, plus there
handels may be hi.
But luk was with us.
Just then, a very Yung Yuman, a meer Todler, todled past with
a smile of
possibly thinking we are Dogs.
There in her hand, we noted: some fud! It looked gud and
smelled grate. It
is a Bun! All of the suden, we desided to enter into a Fare
Deel with her,
whereby we wud share her Bun, by us taking it.
But then, quik as the wink, she is in taken into the Mawl,
with one hand in
the hand of her Mother and, in the other hand, our Bun! And
before we knew
it, we too, lerd by her fud, had been intaken into
FoxViewCommons, rite
threw their Dore!
There is a hi music sound. The ground is like glas. Or ise.
And o my frends, the things we saw!
We saw the Gap! We saw Eye Openers! We saw a Pet Store, with
captured
Kats! We saw a small River that, tho flowing, did not smell
rite. We saw
some Fake Rox. We saw Trees. Reel Trees, inside FoxViewCommons!
It
made us want to dig a Den! We saw a groop ofYung Yumans,
waring brite
close and dansing fast, and some Old Yumans we think are there
mothers,
hopping about kwite eksited, yeling advise, such as, Pik it
up, Krista}! Or
Smile, Kara, why look so sad wile dansing, babe? We saw a
round thing
which had Fake Horses upon it, on which they are enslaved and
made to go
circular, as Yung Yumans enjoy it by being plased on bak of
them. I was left
to wonder: Why wud Old Yumans enjoy putting Yung Yumans on
Fake
Horses? It was a total mistery. And remanes so. It is as if an
Old Fox enjoys
9
putting his Yung Fox on a Fake Deer. I for one wud not enjoy
that. Altho it
might be funy at first.
Yumans wud walk by and go: Hey, look, Foxes. And drop a bit of
fud at
us. Soon we had karmel korn, sevral parshul biskits, plus a
pare so fresh it did
not even stink.
I woslike: This must be Fud Cort.
Fox 7 woslike: I gess so.
We were so happy we sat between those Fake Rox, speeking
dreemy lee of
our future, such as: We wud get some pants and glases. We wud
ride in a Kar,
plasing a coffee on are breefcase. We wud make such gud frends
with the
Yumans, they wud cut a Fox Dore in there Mawl.
Never had Yumans seemed so cul. We were sarounded by splender
no Fox
cud curate. Hense were fild with respek. Cud a Fox do this?
Bild a Mawl? Fat
chanse! The best we can do is dig are Dens.
Then it was time to go home.
For we now had fud sufishent to save the lifes of our frends.
Holding that fud in are mowths, we troted bak threw
FoxViewCommons,
beds held hi, having such a feeling of pride, being probly the
first Foxes or
even Animals ever inside FoxViewCommons, except for those
captured Kats.
Out we went.
Here again was the Sun! Here again Clowds! I cud not wate to
see Fox 41,
and go: Hi, Fox 41, perfeshunal turd, care for some fud?
But upon reaching the edge of Par King, guess what we did not
find?
Fox 41.
Or are other Foxes.
Or are Den.
It woslike we had gone out a hole difrent Dore than we had
gone in threw.
Now, one thing I lerned from Storys is, when something big is
about to
okur, a riter will go: Then it hapened!
This tells the reeder: Get Reddy.
Here I go: Then it hapened!
There at the edj of Par King was a teem of two Yumans doing
some
digging. One woslike: Holy krap, Foxes! As if he had never
seen a Fox
before. My feeling was: Yes, yes, we are Foxes, hello frends,
we have just
seen the wunder that is your Mawl, we congradulate you! We glampsed
your
fake River, obserbed your cute yung ones dansing, gladly
acsepted your
10
generus gift of Fud. You are so nise! What a grate day for the
Fox/Yuman
conection!
Then that first Yuman, kwite huje, took off a blue hat he was
wearing. And
I woslike, in my brane: It must be a form of saloot? So did a
Fox saloot back,
which is: reach out with front legs, bow, yawn. Only then,
running toward us
in a startling maner, he threw that hat at us! From the sound
it made upon not
hitting us, but only Par King, I saw it must be made of rok. I
gave Fox 7 a
glanse, like: What did we do rong? Then the other Yuman, kwite
small, ran at
us, and threw his hat, and o my frends, what happened next is
hard to rite.
Because that hat wonked Fox 7 skware in his face! And sudenly
his nees go
week, and he gives me one last fond look, and drops over on
his side, with
blud trikling out his snout! I breefly tried to revive him, by
sniffing. But here
comes the huje and the small Yuman, running as if in viktree,
making a noise
that made my hare stand on my nek, and what cud I do but flee?
Glansing bak wile troting, I saw the huje and small Yuman
doing such
things to Fox 7 as: further hits with their hats, and kiks and
stomps, wile
making adishunal noises I had never herd a Yuman make, as if
this is fun, as
if this is funy, as if they are prowd of what they are
akomplishing! Reeching a
dirt klod big as me, I lay behind it, panting wile shaking.
Which is when I
saw the last straw of there croolty, which was:
the small Yuman pikked up Fox 7, now ded, and flung him threw
the air!
Poor Fox 7, my frend, was spinning wile saling, like something
long with a
wate at one end! And what did those Yumans do? Stood bent
over, laffing so
hard! Then retreeved there crool hats and went bak to werk,
slaping hands, as
if what they had done was gud, and cui, and had made them
glad.
Rest of the day I hid amung those dirt klods, kwietly
wimpering.
When darkness fell I snuk over and vewed what remaned of Fox
7.
I had herd many Storys at that window but never had I herd a
Story in
which anything like what hapened to pore Fox 7 hapened. I did
not know a
Fox cud look that way. Even our Foxes who got hit by Kars did
not look as
bad as Fox 7.
And it was Yumans had done it.
I troted all nite, tray stunned. I wud stop to sleep, but
dreem of Fox 7 and
his sad last glanse. Kwaking there under the moon, I wud remember
the nise
way Fox 7 had of doing a nose-nudge, if a frend of his mite be
feeling low.
Then I wud rise and run, trying to ferget.
11
And by morning was kwite lost.
For days I romed, leming many things, such as: A rode can pass
over a
River. There is more than one Mawl. A tree can flote in a
lake. Sometimes
Yumans run in groops, waring yelow. Once on a sine is a
picture of a Duk
chopping down a tree with another Duk, who looks tray mad.
Soon my pads
are bludy.
There is no fud. Sometimes I cud find a Grasshopper. Once I
fownd a ded
Berd, who had been ded so long he had bad hi gene. So I cud
not eat him. I
tryed but no way.
12
Perhaps, reeder, you have herd that frase called: It was the
best of times, it
was the werst of times? (It is from a buk. Once that Mother
tried reeding that
buk to her cubs. But it pruved boring, with too many werds.
Therebuy her
cubs began doing what Yung Yumans do when bord, which is,
rolling around
with fingers up nose, pinching there baby brother.)
All I cud think was, Fox 7 is ded, and it is all my fawlt. Why
had I ever
had that dum idea of entering the Mawl? Why was I born so
weerd? Why cud
I not be a simple Fox, having no day-dreems, speeking just
Fox, obaying my
Grate Leeder?
It was the werst of times, it was the werst of times.
And tell the truth, my hart went slite lee bad.
Troting thru a forest, I wud heer such things as Berds swoping
down
prasing all nature, and Mise saying it is a super day, and
Cows in a nearby
feeld going, O wow, isn't the werld grate and so farth, we are
just reely
luvving this super grass. That is how Animals are: kwite cheer
full. But I was
not like that now. And knew I wud not be like that again. Now
their songs of
luv seemed like the dopy chater Fox 7 and I had been saying to
each other as
we lay all hapy between those Fake Rox in the Mawl, sharing
are hope full
plans of getting pants and glases and so farth, and inviting
Yumans to are
Den, serving them some froot if we have some, all that time
watching those
Yumans with such luv, not knowing what was coming next, like
two little
Babys, fast asleep in the middle of a horeable werld, who did
not yet know
how horeable it reely is.
Sometimes, troting on my bludy pads threw a Yuman zone, such
as
RiverWalkEstates, along such rodes as Hummingbird Way and Slow
Stream
Ave or even Melody Manner Passage, seeing so many grate Dens,
with lites
like indoor suns, and water shooting majik lee out of there
grass at will,
seeing that long line of Kars trot away so proud every morning
full of
Yumans, and the other splenders Yumans cud do, such as make
grass short,
such as cause flowrs to grow inside there Dens, I woslike: Why
did the
Curator do it so rong, making the groop with the gratest skils
the meenest?
Then one day I came upon a Forest, the like of which I had
never seen
before, so deep and green and dark and grate-smelling it made
those holes in
my nose go super wide with sheer delite. O, the lite threw the
Trees! The
moving shadows when the wind wud blow! The millyun grate
smells, such as
water not far away! The wind in the hi part of the Trees, and
sometimes a
branch will crak!
13
All of the suden, I smelled Fox big-time. Then saw Foxes
big-time. A hole
other groop. Just like us. Only not. Compared to us they were
(1) less skiny
and had (2) no feer in eyes and (3) cotes of the pretiest red
ever, a deep Fox
lee red that made me ashamed of my own dul cote.
I told them my name and let them smell me, hoping they wud
like me.
Which they did. They did smell me. They did like me. They tuk
turns
smelling and liking me.
I told them all that had be fallen me. They beleeved it about
the Mawl.
They did not beleev it about Fox 7. I cud tell. They looked at
me funy. Then
looked at each other funy.
Tell the truth, I wud not have beleeved me either if I had
showed up and
told me that.
Those Foxes were super nise. One came over all shy and out of
her mowth
dropped a froot at my paw.
One dropped a gift of a part of a Berd. They showed me to a
pond, where I
drank so much they were slitely laffing.
And I woslike: There is no fud or gud water where I live.
One of them woslike: We kind offiggered.
Then, thanks to my habit of day-dreeming, I saw myself, in my
brane,
leeding my other Foxes to this paradice, one by one, threw
FoxViewCommons. I wud show them the Gap. I wud show them the
Fake
Rox. If one was skared I wud say: Don't be skared. And make a
joke. If one
was slow I wud give a push from behind with an enkeraging
snout. If one
was looking around all freeked out, I wud calm lee go:
Fokus, fokus. If one was old, such as are Grate Leeder, I wud
carry him or
her on my bak.
Soon, in my mind, we are all safe lee there. And my other
Foxes, looking
at me with shy glanses upturned, are like: Fox 8, we cud not
have been more
rong. And they fan me with there fans.
I snapped out from that day-dreem to find the New Foxes
regarding me
with kind lee smiles.
When I told them my day-dreem, they were like: Cul. Bring your
frends
here, we can all live together very hapy. There is so much fud
here it is like
crazy.
Wud it be easy?
It wud not. It wud take Guts. But I have Guts. I once likked
the tire of a
Truk that was moving to see how it tasted, which the Groop
teesed me about
14
it, because hey Fox 8, why not wate until one found a Truk not
moving, wud
that not be easier?
Only too bad. If this was a buk, all it wud take is Guts, and
I cud have
done it. But no. It was reel life.
For many weeks I tried to find my Old Foxes. My new frends
even helped.
But noway.
We serched and serched but never fownd my frends, or even a
trase of
FoxViewCommons.
It is as if my beluvved Old Groop had fallen off the fase of
Erth. (Gudby
deer frends. I will not forgit you.)
So now I live here. I have fud. I have water. I have frends.
One frend is
Fox SmallNose/ Alert+Furry. She is prety. She is nise. These
new Foxes do
there names somewhat difrent, having werds in there names.
These werds tell
what is note werthy about each Fox. Like one Fox is known as
Fox
Complanes Constantly/Yet Nise. One is known as Fox WhySoHefty?
My
frend Fox SmallNose/Alert+Funy has a small nose, plus is
alert, plus is funy.
Hense her name.
15
Sometimes she is like: You are not all here, Fox 8. Come
alive. Be hapy.
Yesterday she woslike: You have a sad dark view.
And I woslike: So wud you.
She woslike: Well, I do not want are Babys having a mopy dad.
To which I woslike: Wait, are we having Babys?
And she spun arownd, and did a hop-and-yip.
Hearing that gave me paws. I did not want to be the kind of
Dad who is so
mad he just skowls, and hense his Babys are like: Ugh, Dad
brings us down,
he does not find life gud, but only sits mad in the Den wile
us other Foxes
stare up at the moonlite, nuzzling close, moving our tale
areas bak and forth
the way we Foxes do when glad. I wanted to be the kind of Dad
who, yeers
hense, when thinking of me, are Babys are like, gud old Dad,
he was always
there for us, showing us with the old snout-nudge what is fud
and what is not.
So asked myself: What mite somewhat retreev the old and hope
full me?
And replyed: Some ansers.
Which is why I am riting this leter to you Yumans.
I wud like to know what is rong with you peeple. How cud the
same type
of Animal who made that luv lee Mawl make Fox 7look the way he
looked
that time I saw him? Wud a Yuman do something like that to
another Yuman?
I dowt it. Whenever I saw a Yuman, he or she was laffing wile
smiling wile
approaching the Mawl. Sometimes one Kar mite hit another Kar
and a Yuman
mite be slite lee mad, but always, by the end, they are at
least nise, and give
each other the gift of a scrap of paper. Never onse did I see
a Yuman hit
another Yuman with a rok hat, stomp and kik that Yuman, then
fling that
Yuman, laffing when he or she came down in a puff of dirt with
a sikening
sound.
Maybe Yumans do that.
But I have not seen it.
I know life can be gud. Most lee it is gud. I have drank cleen
cold water on
a hot day, herd the soft bark of the one I luv, watched sno
fall slow, making
the wuds kwiet. But now all these happy sites and sounds seem
like triks.
Now it seems like the gud times are mere lee smoke that, upon
blowing away,
here is the reel life, which is: rok hats, kikking, stomping.
Every minit with
16
no kikking and stomping now seems like not a real minit. Do
you get what I
mean? It is like some frend who preveusly was nise sud en lee
says some
crool thing and does this nip on your flank. Even when he goes
bak to being
nise, you will never feel exact lee safe. And meenwile your
other frends, who
did not get nipped, are troting arownd with hapy smiles,
going: Fox 8, why so
glum?
Preevius to leming we wud have Babys, I felt, about Yumans: I
brake with
you. If you see me in the wuds, do not come neer. Stay in your
awesum
howses, play your music lowd, however you make it play so
lowd, yap your
Yuman jokes, sending forth your crood laffter into the nite. I
will not
approche you. I will just stay in my plase, skwatting low,
fearful and
kwaking, which is how you seem to like us Foxes.
But now, Babys on root, I do not want to feel that way.
I want to feel strong and generus. I want to feel hope full.
Which is why,
upon compleeshun of this leter, I will leeve it at that howse
at the end of
Clear Circle Way, where offen I see a serten rownd guy feeding
Berds. His
male boks says his name is P. Melonsky. You seem nise enough,
P. Melonsky.
Reed my leter, go farth, ask your felow Yumans what is up,
rite bak, leeve
your anser under your Berd feeder, I will come in the nite to
retreeve and
lern.
I am sure there is some eksplanashun.
And wud luv to know it.
Reeding my Story bak just now, I woslike: O no, my Story is a
bumer.
There is the deth of a gud pal, and no plase of up lift, or
lerning a leson. The
nise Fox's first Groop stays lost, his frend stays ded.
Bla.
If you Yumans wud take one bit of advise from a meer Fox? By
now I
know that you Yumans like your Storys to end hapy?
If you want your Storys to end happy, try being niser.
I awate your answer.
Fox8