Omelas Monologue

Omelas Ending: The Ignorance of Omelas

The ones who walk away from Omelas, that’s what I will be called; what we will all be called after we leave. I have already met the child who suffers for us. It has been six years since mother saw him; it has been six years since she walked away. Six years does not take long in this heavenly place; in this heavenly city. When I first saw him, my reaction was not surprising. I could feel the cringe crawling upon my face, my spotless hand covering my face as the pungent stench soiled my lungs. I did not walk inside but I did not need to, the child’s naked body covered in sores and excrement was enough to make the mightiest man puke. He was making loud moaning noises, like a wounded animal. He was also

The blur of people screaming at me, my mother grabbing me and running away, the panicked hands and faces as I was pulled upstairs were still a blur in my mind. Since then I had avoided the place, but as a new adolescent it has become a mandatory task.
The creature stared at us with tears running down its face, and it pointed at us. The sudden motion surprised the crowd I was in and the guide grabbed an iron bar and pushed the thing’s demanding finger away. Then it spoke, not like its usual gibberish but real words. “Inferno”, “caelum” I froze. The words were familiar somehow, without thinking I stepped into the room and grabbed the thing’s arm, “what did you say? What about-” Before I could say anything else, I was yanked out of the room but before I could think of anything the screaming began. Loud, angry, painful screeching came from the little thing. The guide slammed the door, but the screaming still sliced through the door and pierced the atmosphere. I ran upstairs before anybody could question

It pointed outside the cell, outside the walls; it spoke deep, “judgment.” It pointed to the sky, then below the ground, “caelum, inferno.” Finally it slammed its fist into the ground with a crushing sound as either the floor or his hand cracked and pointed at me, “ignorance.” I look at it but I realize it was not pointing at me, it was pointing at my head where my mark was. Right on cue, the voice I had stuck in my throat for years came out in a shaky tone as everything clicked together: the judgment of the priest, the mark, and the reason why people left Omelas. This is not real. You died. I died. The priest was right, that mark was a scar. I died, so did my family and anyone else with this marking. Everything