The Giver, a la Shmoop
You know that awkward moment when you completely forget somebody's name?
Well... I don't. I have to remember everything around here. My name is Jonas, but you can
call me...the Receiver.
Being the Receiver of Memories is a lot of pressure.
You see, here in my hometown, we like things to stay the same.
We've even got a word for it...sameness. There's no messy feelings, no war, not even road rage.
ROFL is more like SIMA...
Smile in moderate amusement...
Our leaders, aka the Elders, want to make sure that mankind's sordid past remains a
secret, and that's where I come in.
I'm sort of the backup drive for the community, safeguarding all those forgotten memories
so we don't make the same mistake twice.
Sometimes that's good... some memories should definitely stay buried...
...but it gets a little lonely when you're the only one who remembers the good things,
like sled rides and sunshine. There's no such thing as child labor laws
here...once you turn 12, you're assigned a career in the working world.
The Elders pick your job for you, so you don't have to worry about that whole "free choice" thing.
I had it pretty easy with my new gig. I buddied up with the old Receiver while he zapped all
his knowledge and wisdom into my head.
Except now that he was forking over his job, he was called "The Giver."
I never had a chance to ask him whether it was better to... Giver than to Receiver....
Being the Receiver was a kick. I could interrogate anyone I liked without getting yelled at...
...and The Giver showed me all this stuff I never knew about. Still, I had a lot of
questions. Such as... what was it like in the Elsewhere, where we send all of our weak links?
On the flip side, I couldn't share my knowledge with anyone, except poor little Gabriel, the
runty baby my dad took care of as part of his job.
My memories stopped Gabriel from crying, and he needed all the help he could get, or he'd
be released with the other social rejects. But then The Giver started to show me the
dark side of things. The reason we had to keep these memories secret was because some
of them were horrible.
I mean... pain? Watching your friends die on a battlefield? Marathon viewings of titanic?
That's just barbaric.
All these drugged-up, emotionless yokels around me have it easy.
Oh, and guess what? "Released" is really a fancy term for "getting a lethal injection
and being shoved down a garbage chute."
People like my dad did that on a daily basis, even to babies like Gabriel!
The Giver decided that enough was enough, and he decided to help me fake my own death
and bust out of this place.
Once I made it to Elsewhere, all of my memories would be released, and the mindless robots
back home would be forced to wake up and smell the coffee.
I had to speed things up, though, because Dad announced that little Gabriel was scheduled
to bite the dust.
So I snuck out one night, and we biked for our lives!
I did most of the pedaling, though.
But pretty soon we ran out of food, and I sprained my
ankle, and it started to snow
We got to the top of a hill, and I saw a cool
sled, just like in The Giver's memory.
I figured we could take a ride...it's not like I have anything else to do. I hope we
make it to Elsewhere.
Until then, I'm just going to put up my arms and say, "Weeeeee!"