I had to get my childhood out of the cellar to could leave Omelas. It wasn’t enough for some to bear the guilt of being human in order to leave Omelas. The lock on the cellar was the taboo. I decided to talk about the taboo so I could unlock it. I chose to speak to a camera as a method. I told about it, and now I’m back on earth. Under the sunshine, within the crowd.
“The summer festival came to the bright seaside town of Omelas with the sound of bells sending swallows in the air. Flags were flying on boats that were swaying in the harbour. Parades marched through the streets between red-roofed houses and walls adored with pictures, among the old gardens where figs grew, and under boulevards filled with trees, next to large parks and public buildings… Some were flamboyant: old people in purple and grizzly, long, fancy clothes, proud craftsmen, ‘parading festive women’ with babies in their arms, chattering. And in some streets the music is playing faster, people were dancing as gongs and drums rumbled. As if it wasn’t just a walk, it was a dance... All the parades headed to the north side of the city called green meadows; young boys and girls, naked in the bright sun, feet and knees covered in mud, long, squirmy-sleeved gathered and prepared their horses for the race. The horses had no harnesses, only bridles were attached. The horses were decorated with gold, silver and green stripes. They were breathing and bragging to each other by opening and closing their nostrils fast; they were all very excited because the horses were the only animals that embraced our ceremonies as if they were theirs. Further laid the north and west mountains that half surrounded Omelas along the gulf stretched. The morning weather was so clear that, under the azure sky, the snow crowning the Onsekiz Hills radiated white-gold for with the sunlight. Occasionally, there was enough wind to fly the flags that set the race route. In the silence of the vast, green meadows, the music, getting close, then moving away, and getting closer and closer, can be heard gliding through the city’s streets; the cheerful and vague sweetness of the air, which vibrated from time to time, merged and exploded with the great enthusiastic ringing of the bells, was felt.” *
In the midst of these happy people’s festivities, I was like Nick Ut’s “Running Napalm Girl”. *
A family was having breakfast on the balcony of a house that faced the street. A mother, a father, a daughter, a boy… The table was as bright and cheerful as their faces were. The father caressed his daughter’s head. Not with a man’s sexual desires, but with the compassion a little girl needs. A touch I never knew. I couldn’t learn what compassion was in that cellar. I didn’t know what compassion was in that cellar. Maybe it wasn’t something that needed to be learned, maybe it was in every person spontaneously. Even if it was in me, there was no way it could live in that cellar. Maybe it’ll grow in the sunlight. This cheerful table and these tender touches remind me of what I’ve lost. I am crying… The family on the balcony couldn’t see or hear me. They continue their cheerful breakfast as if I didn’t exist. I think they are the ones who said: “Yes, I couldn’t watch your interview, I didn’t watch it.”
I’m walking, against the cheery crowd of people. Two young people walk kissing. The boy’s hand is on the girl’s chest. They lost themselves over pleasure that they can’t see anyone. I never knew how to get lost in pleasure. In my body, where my father inflicted grievous wounds, the eager hands of my lovers gave me as much pleasure as they could give to open wounds.
I have friends in the group that’s coming up ahead. They look at me with fear, too. Some of them had never seen me naked. I didn’t tell them what my father did. Those who saw me naked saw me in the darkness of the cellar. Seeing them in the sunlight frightened them, too and shocked them.
As I walked the streets, I heard voices coming from the cellars. They could hear my footsteps, too. There was no way we could have heard each other from the cellars. Now there was a festive atmosphere in the cellars. It’s a celebration of the possibility that someone had left, and that all the cellars may be emptied. They were following me like they were watching me through a periscope with hope. They were watching the Omelasians. They wondered if the city would take its guilt and empty the cellars.
Those who left the Omelas… They were the only ones who weren’t afraid when they saw me. They were not scared; they were not surprised. Since they saw me in the cellar, they took the burden of the guilt of being human and left this city. They stopped being scared and surprised. Tears streaming down their eyes, quietly. They cried for their desperation. Not for me, but for the other children in the cellar. For the existence of the cellar.
People who saw me in the cellar and never forgot me, who could never leave Omelas, who had no joy like the people of this city, became more unhappy when they saw me in the daylight. In fact, the whole city was unhappy within a moment. At the speed of lightning, they remembered that the happiness of this city was based on my suffering. They wanted me to go down to the cellar, afraid that this unhappiness would be constant. That’s when I knew Omelas’s happiness was about my suffering. For years, in the cellar, I thought I deserved to suffer because I was a bad child. I wasn’t imprisoned because I was bad, but because of the happiness of this city. To be able to accept the pain I’ve been going through for 45 years without going crazy. To be able to stop without anger, burning, demolishing. Not knowing where to stop. To think that there is no place for you in this world with the Omelasians, not with those in the cellar, nor with those who left Omelas, not feeling like you belong anywhere.
*Omelas narratives are usually written by quoting after the parts about the cellar. I quoted Ursula le Guin’s festive section at the beginning of the story “Those Who Left Omelas.” Because I really don’t know the joy nor do I know how to describe cheerful constructions.
*Nick Ut’s “Napalm Girl” photo shows a girl running naked with her hands open because her body was burned by a napalm bomb during the war in Vietnam.