Chapter 24

Austin Witthun 2/22/12

24

Authors note: this is a chapter following the last chapter, chapter 23. It is predicting what happens after the memories are released in the community.

The suffering started slowly. It started with a Twelve. He started to feel warm. Then he began to sweat. He was immediately sent home from school to his dwelling. At first his mother had thought that it was a fever. But then the boy started to comprehend what had happened.

“I felt something that I have never felt. Something told me it was called warmth. Well, I wasn’t told it but, I sort of remembered what it was. Then it became unbearable. I felt something else after that too, when I touched my skin. It was an unpleasant feeling that when it occurred, I felt it was called pain.” He was immediately brought to the hospital. Because they could not find anything wrong with the boy, he was brought before the council, who after about half an hour sent for The Giver. When The Giver walked into the room, he was peppered with questions.

“What has happened to the boy?” the council asked angrily.

The giver thought for a moment after he examined the boy and was told his symptoms.

“It must be sunburn” The Giver said. The council then asked The Giver to leave the room to discuss this with them so that the boy wouldn’t hear.

“Now Giver,” one of the members of the council said. “You do know that the Sameness makes these things go away. Are you suggesting that the Sameness is failing?” The Giver thought about this too. Although in his mind he knew exactly why this was happening, he couldn’t let anyone know. And the only other person who did know was hundreds, maybe even thousands of miles away.

As the hours passed, more and more people started to feel these strange things that The Giver had described as emotions. Some felt the burning sensation, like the case of the boy, but others felt cold of varying extremes. Some felt starvation and, others pain of broken limbs. But, some of the Community had felt emotions that were different than these. Friendship, love and, joy were felt among some but were equally disturbing to the people.

“We should go and find The Receiver; he may have an idea about what is going on.” Although this was just a trick by The Giver, so that the council, and eventually the community would realize the truth. And that truth was plain and simple. None of them would ever see Jonas again.

During the search for Jonas, Jonas’ parents had realized that Gabriel was nowhere to be found. They then were to search for Jonas and the baby. Eventually after three hours of searching his own and the dwellings of his friends, the search part came to the river. While searching up and down the river, someone found a pile of clothes that had belonged to Jonas. The search party was quiet for a while. Then Jonas’ dad was the first to speak.

“He must have fallen in the river. I thought that he could swim, the current must have been strong.” then as the people were wondering what to do next The Giver spoke:

“ We must honor Jonas. Commence the missing person ceremony.” Then as the people walked back to their dwellings, they called out Jonas’ name loudly. As the day went by, they said it quieter and quieter until it was just a whisper. The next day, after having no luck with finding Gabriel, they had another missing person ceremony for Gabriel. After that the rules of the Receiver were under close examination for the safety of the Receiver to ensure that a tragedy like this would never happen again.