[Fiction] The Child

[Officelover]

Note: This is my "graphic" adaptation of Ursula K. Le Guin's classic 1973 short story, "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". You might want to read the story here, for a deeper understanding of the setting. I've changed many details, but I'm attempting to stay true to the compelling questions the story raises about scapegoats and society. This is going to be a fairly short piece. Also, this story will be quite violent, disgusting, and, hopefully, also intellectually stimulating. Thanks!

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I was thirteen when I first saw the Child. My mother took me to see it. She said that her mother had taken her to see it when she was thirteen, and her mother had seen it first when she was thirteen too.
She smiled reassuringly at me as we waited, in the children's section of one of the central library. I casually flipped through a storybook I'd picked up. I remember that the chair I was sitting in was very comfortable.
A matronly librarian in a light blue dress came up to us and asked my mom if we were looking to see the Child. My mother told her that it was my first time.
“Your first time?” the woman beamed at me, “What grade are you going into this year, love?”
“The eighth.”
“Why, then after this summer you'll be with the big kids. What do you like to do?”
“I like to read.”
“I'm always happy to hear young people say they enjoy reading,” she grinned, “Any favorite books?”
I told her my favorite books as she took my mother and I down the long, spiral staircase to the basement. She nodded and recommended more to me that I might like. When we reached the landing at the bottom of the stairs, she told us to wait so she could get the Child.
I hummed and swayed back and forth. My mother asked me if I'd like to go get ice cream after this. But before I could answer, a terrible scream came from the door she'd closed behind her. The only screams I'd ever really heard before that were when Daddy dropped his hammer on his foot, or when Mom burnt her fingers. I asked my mother what had happened, but she just raised a finger to her lips. The crying only got worse and worse until I heard a series of slaps that must have shut whatever was causing that screeching up.
The door swung open and the old woman pushed the Child ahead of her. It cowered, shivering, in the corner. It was naked, tall, and almost skeletally thin. It had long, slender arms, and scrawny legs. I tried looking into its eyes, but it looked down, curling up into a ball and covering its penis.
It could hardly be described as a child at that point; when I first saw it, I'd say it was nineteen years old. I was only thirteen, and even I didn't consider myself to be a child. The librarian began hitting it over the head, shouting at it to get up and to stop covering itself.
It did so, with what appeared to be reluctance, and it began to whimper softly.
“This is the Child, Yalda,” my mother told me.
It looked directly in my eyes, and blinked; I couldn't stand to look at it. I scrambled behind my mother's dress, not out of fear of the child, but afraid of the librarian who had seemed so nice only a minute ago.
I asked the librarian, “Why are you hurting it?”
She began to deliver an answer she had obviously repeated countless times before: “The success of our city—the bounty of our farmers, the pride of our craftsmen, the knowledge of our scholars, the joy of our artists—all depends on the suffering of this Child. It might be difficult to understand, but it has long been known that the happiness of everyone above depends on keeping this Child down.”
“There's nothing we could do to make,” I looked at the Child again, “him better?”
“We could improve his life, but we would bring unhappiness on Omelas.”
“Why?”
“That's how it is.”
“But why him?”
“It is all of the evil of our world. You know what evil is, don't you? We don't have much of it. The citizens of the other cities—they envy us because of our good fortune. Yet they never attack us, because we never attack anyone. We are content with what we've got, and poverty and hatred are virtually nonexistent in Omelas, right? We are succeed for one reason only: we channel all of our hatred into one, inconsequential Child.” Turning to it, she said, “Isn't that right?” as she pushed it face-first onto the floor.
It stayed there, and though my mother and the librarian talked for minutes, listing more of reasons and explanations of the importance of keeping the Child down, I couldn't stop looking at it, heaving on the floor, its vertebrae bouncing with every breath.
Finally, we left, and at her desk the librarian told me I was welcome to come to the Library whenever I wanted and to use the Child however I wanted—provided no one else was using it.
“Is it always here?” My mother asked for me, politely.
“No,” she answered, “it's hardly ever here. It really only sleeps here, when we allow it to. It's free to roam the city, but it tries to hide, I think, from people. Who knows what it does? Who cares?” She reached into her drawer and pulled out a green lollipop for me.
“No thanks,” my mother said with a laugh, “we're going out for some ice cream now.”
I didn't sleep that night. That was the first time I'd ever stayed up all night, and it was terror. The Child haunted my dreams, obviously, and I couldn't stop remembering it curled up, or how the librarian beat it over the head...
I remember wondering how I'd never seen it before, if it was free to roam Omelas. What scared me most, I think, was that in retrospect it was in a lot of my memories. I thought I had seen it lurking in the shadows of that year's Festival of Summer. It seemed to be in a lot of shadowy memories, or maybe I was just adding that ghoulish body in. Whether or not it was there, I couldn't imagine that kind of cruel treatment in memories so happy for me.
I cried for the Child.
I think all children do. My friends did, I recall. One day soon after, my best friend Lana and I whispered about the Child in school. We came up with a plan to free it—it was more just a game to us than anything else, but I would think about freeing it all the time.
Then I would imagine a great storm-cloud above the city, and heaven opening up and—