The Giver (The Giver, #1)

by Lois Lowry

For a contributing citizen to be released from the community was a final decision, a terrible punishment, an overwhelming statement of failure.

There were only two occasions of release which were not punishment. Release of the elderly, which was a time of celebration for a life well and fully lived; and release of a newchild, which always brought a sense of what-could-we-have-done.

Most of the people on the night crew had not even been given spouses because they lacked, somehow, the essential capacity to connect to others, which was required for the creation of a family unit.

“If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! A blue tunic, or a red one?”

“Do you understand why it’s inappropriate to use a word like ‘love’?” Mother asked. Jonas nodded. “Yes, thank you, I do,” he replied slowly. It was his first lie to his parents.

“You suggested, Jonas, that perhaps she wasn’t brave enough? I don’t know about bravery: what it is, what it means. I do know that I sat here numb with horror. Wretched with helplessness. And I listened as Rosemary told them that she would prefer to inject herself. “Then she did so. I didn’t watch. I looked away.”

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without color, pain, or past.

But when the memory glimpses subsided, he was left with the gnawing, painful emptiness.