The Ones Who Walk Away From Austin (Omelas)

 

The ones who walk away from Omelas

Pt. 2

Titled

The Williamson County and Travis Transition

The Boy

            Michael had visited his new home town’s favorite restaurant. He was deeply regretful of the way that he had been treating his family and was constantly paining and punishing himself for the way that he had been behaving. “I am really sorry that I resented you. I think that you deserve an apology for my intrusiveness. I respected you all along and think that you were really trying to do something for me that I did not understand at the time.”

The Father and Soon to be Prophet

            Well you seem very courteous young man. I would be glad to teach you some things about being a farmer, but the problem with that is I am not a farmer. I am a rancher. There is a difference here.

The father’s kids laughed and chuckled out of a glee that the boy found peculiar and hurtful. They really didn’t mean any harm they just knew that Michael was in for something that he had never experienced before. One of them standoffishly put his head down and shook it. He thought he was about to say that he couldn’t handle it, but the father signaled him to come over and say it. Showing quite politely that the work was going to be no joke, and that training is truly a regime.

The guest Michael who was dressed up to play as if it were a job was hiding something very serious from the Dad.  Michael had some creative plans as to what to say to him such as: “I think that you find me very interesting, but truly deep down you do not know if I am manipulative or not.” “Maybe you take that as an inspiration.” Childishly and foolishly he increasingly and antagonistically rebelled against his original primitive and classic etiquette.

Michael looked like someone very sweet and innocent. Yet he had already committed sins that blistered his very psychology. The problem with Michael at this point was that he just in no way whatsoever believed in his own morality. He was aware of this foolish masochism within the desideration of his soul, but he was just a boy so how much quantitatively could he have really inappropriately consumed that the adults didn’t do on a regular basis. He felt that he was quietly a weasel amongst superior and more perfect subjects. He sometimes thoughtfully suspected that there was an equally destructive dark secret within the persons, role models, brothers sisters, and teachers that he met. The sad thing and yes this is so sad is that he was hiding so much shame. Really ultimately and truly deep down he was filled with jubilance and glee that this beautiful opportunity to be a ranch hand for a day was something that he would never forget. The rancher almost stumbled and Michael did not know why. They were almost to the barn which was politely corroded with a darkened and oily saturation that could only be a sign of effort, bright sunlight, fumes, cleaning, and none other than cows.

Then it was a brave and delightful moment for Michael to hear something from his new mentor. “I think that you are trying to tell me something. I think that it is very possible that we will have time for that later.”  Michael had a clever response “Well Mr. Boss I think that it would be truthful and honest of me to say that regardless of what I tell you. I am perfectly fine with what I learn today, and I will do the best that I can to support you and your husbands or kids rather.”

“I mean after all you must know some things about my latest remarks or prior words that is.”.

The rancher said “Okay let’s go…anyways” So this is our rotating door. “Some of you city boys may know about contraptions or…ahem.”

“Apparatuses?”

“Sure that’ll do hehe if you say so.”

“Anyways…this is our barn door it rolls on that.”

The awesome and rustic metallic steel shred a frequency that Michael thought he was going to fear, but never really was startled at in any way. This practice was already healthy for him. He had been concerned that he was going to be granted a judgmental teacher of some kind. Someone who would beat him, make him feel like he was weaker. However; that was all in the work. The kind of work that was actually about to differentiate pain from pleasure. The kind of work that was going to require strength, stamina, accuracy, effort, and endurance.

Michael thought it was interesting at first that the rancher was so able to notice his gestures, and it was almost as if he was telepathic in some way. Like he knew that there was some kind of purpose to the craft, some kind of giving to the cause. This was Michael’s biggest fear because he had never really fully been in this kind of heat. He was expecting a brutal burn, and an ass whooping if he didn’t do the right thing. He went on to admit this to the rancher, but the rancher could only tell him to stop jabbering. Michael supposed that he may be stronger than he thought and moved on to examine.

“It’s all basic carpentry.” Said the rancher Michael came from analytics. He looked up and saw energies that he had never imagined could be real to the subject’s eyes and thought that he admitted some things about his fascination that might embarrass him. The interior was two floors one of which was a bed that had hay and a bed for rest. The other was a gate filled with what at first glance seemed like junk yard materials, but at second glance has sharpened and honed metals that were rakes, shovels, hoes, slabs of aluminum that might be used for multi-purpose functions of any kind to the creative mind.

They worked on simple machines and soil bagging procedures ofr a few hours and once they were done returned to the house where the clothes would be washed and a shower was available. “yes of course I mean it’s not like we don’t have the commodities of an average household.” There was hilarity in the air and the kid thought he was making fantasies out of himself, but he was merely trying to progress past his dark self and venture on into a new existence where his identity was not all full of perversion, shame, and embarrassment.

He thought and ruminated about trying to find some kind of quality characteristic or virtue that he could possibly possess amidst the self-loathing and shame he was putting on himself. He wondered if this was a dense gravitational pain that was something that everyone experienced or if he was merely playing and treating himself as a victim. Either way accountability for his actions even at the age of 13 were already intimidating, and his only sense of optimism was a building ambition in the back of his head that maybe he could handle it. Maybe he was someone who could not just overcome, but place, and rank, and score like one of the others.

The kid was seemingly unaware of how fortunate he was in the financial department. However he had daydreams of money that resembled fantasies drawn in cartoons. They were scary to him he felt permeated by the dense and heavy reality of his wealth. He imagined that there would be a shame or a guilt that he could never get rid of because of the separation he had from some of the others. Back and forth through his head there were vision of baths of gold, women in expensive dresses that wanted expensive rings. His immediate reaction was to start yelling and screaming at the women in the visions within his head to stop. He did not quite understand just yet what they were really trying to represent and encourage out of their peers and equals. It was easy to see for him that there was a division here that creates some kind of opposite. This may be why he thought he imagined his wealth as destructive or of an overbearing weight. He imagined there would be someone much less rich on the other side of town thinking and writing about an experience he could never have.

He thought that the rancher could not only help him with going in and out of trances and daydreams, but also to find an experiment that physical work might be able to help alleviate the intensity of his imagination and give him some practice in finding a way not to fear these visions so much. One association he had with his wealth and background was that riches somehow created weakness within the skeleton and that people with more are generally experiencing a frailty of an abnormal kind. He did not know how this thought correlated with the truth or if there was a direct cause there. Anyhow this was going to be something. He took a look over at the sons of the rancher. They looked as if they had been conversing or deliberating about a few things. They crossed their arms smirked firmly and gave him a nod of approval.

The next day was the very first day of high school for them. Michael went back home and talked to his parents about some things and his mother was upset for spending so much time away. She thought that Michael was an overly curious child about other people’s families. She did not know why he spent so much time a way from him and his sister. Michael said to his mother “I think that some of these people want to help me with some of my misbehaviors.” His mom shook hear head and politely scorned his mischievousness. He would go on a long observational analysis to his father most of which were total lies because he had an interest in justifying himself as a source of entertainment as well as testy toward to truth detecting abilities of others.

Then it would change, then he would go to school and there would be a class on physics, there would be a class on Math maybe geometry and algebra. Michael found comfort in what these subjects were doing to his mind. He imagined shapes and sizes becoming devices and images for understanding the world. He imagined people wanting to work together to use these thngs for the sake of a product or an architectural device. He sometimes thought that there would be a lot of pain for him in the way that people would want to devour each others intellectual subjects and personal ideas.  Sometimes in Art class he would draw things that he did not want to, but the pretty images in his head meant more as he would trace the limbs of a tree or practice the recorder. He found certain people peculiar because he knew he was angry and had been somewhat of a monster starting from an early age.

Michael grew up in a mansion. He grew up in a massive and glorious house that was made of brick and stone. It had big rooms that could fit multiple families. Michael would sometimes play in the living room and jump on the trampoline with some of his friends who also liked to stay in the mansion. He enjoyed watching them and he sometimes worried that he would not be able to be nice to them because he was becoming increasingly agitated on various levels. He really did not know why, but he suspected that he had witnessed something earlier in his life that really disturbed him. He sometimes thought that he saw blood. There was a girl who would come around ever so often that he was very fond of. He would sometimes think that she was an angel. She loved to show him things and was confident that him as his peevish and weird self could actually handle.