Jonas felt the cold on his skin and the little snow flakes on his cheeks, burning like fire when they flew against his face an
Jonas felt the cold on his skin and the little snow flakes on his cheeks, burning like fire when they rested on his face, and the cold air next to his ears that let him feel that his head must have been already like ice. But Jonas had to manage it to arrive in this little village. It wasn't a long way anymore down with his sled and he held Gabriel more tight in his arms, so he couldn't fall off the sled.
Jonas remembered the lucky memory of his first sledging again and how happy he had felt and how happy he felt now, sharing this moment with somebody else and glad, that the worse memory about his crash with the sled wouldn't come true. And this memory didn't come true.
The sled slowly stopped at the end of the hill and just the music that came out of the houses was around him now. It was a song he had never heard of but something he would never forget. It was a slow one, a song so remarkable that it let Jonas feel the most incredible feeling; sadness.
"We are home, Gabe …", Jonas whispered to Gabriel, who seemed to sleep in his arms. "We are home …" But his own words seemed just like an echo in his mind. The houses seemed to glimmer and Jonas just saw the silhouette of a taller man coming out of one of these houses. And suddenly he fell how he passed out.
"You think he's okay, dad?"
"Sure he is. He just needs to warm himself up."
"Look! I think he opens his eyes!"
Jonas first saw a blurred silhouette of a smaller person who seemed to be just a kid. Then he slowly looked up to a taller person who he could slowly identify as a man with black hair and pale eyes. Pale eyes like his own. Jonas seemed to stare at those eyes because suddenly the smaller person, who he could now identify as a girl with the same black hair and pale eyes like the man, started to giggle. Jonas looked around.
It was a big, comfortable room. The walls were just out of wood and on the ground there was a red carpet. On the left side there was a big tree in the middle of the room, carrying little balls in every colour, Jonas could think of. Right in front of him he saw a big chimney with a big lit fire. The smell of something he had never smelt before was around him but he could say that it smelt so good that Jones was hungry again.
"Gabe .." Jonas stood up and looked around for his little 'brother' but the man with the pale eyes sat him down again.
"Keep sitting. Chalk has got a better skin colour than you." Jonas got the blanket more around him and looked at the man again. "Where is Gabriel … the little boy who was with me … the one who has got pale eyes like me .."
"He's at the doctor", the man said in a calm voice and smiled a bit. But Jonas just looked at the man. He didn't know what a doctor was or what he did. He didn't want that anybody brought him and Gabriel apart. Jonas stood up, ignoring that he was totally powerless.
"Where is he! Bring him back to me from this person!", Jonas said and with every word he became louder.
"Calm down, boy … he's okay …", the man replied and put a hand on his shoulder but Jonas just moved away from his hand, even he felt the gorgeous warmth again he had felt in one of the memories of the Giver again.
"BRING ME TO HIM!", Jonas shouted and the anger that was in him was a feeling he had never felt before so strong. He never knew before what anger was; now it was something what caused him pain in his stomach and what wanted to come out of him. But the man kept his calm voice.
"We will bring you to him. It's all alright." The man said. "You need other clothes otherwise you can't go outside."
Just about half an hour passed before Jonas found himself on the way to the doctor in different clothes. He wore a jeans now, which was really much more uncomfortable than he thought, and a shirt, what wasn't longer than to his pelvis. Jonas had wore his whole life just a tunic and a jacket but nothing like that what he wore now. Jonas looked around outside, watching the snow flakes lying on the ground and building a whole carpet on the whole village. It looked so fantastic that Jonas didn't want to mess it with any other landscape. Carefully he looked up at the man with the pale eyes and watched him for a moment.
"You see that too?" Jonas asked carefully. The man looked down to him, puzzled.
"What do I see?" the man asked and looked at Jonas. Jonas kept quiet for a moment before he looked down at the snow and up at the man again.
"I mean … all those snow flakes. All those colours around here. You see them too?" Jonas looked curiously at the man, but the man had to laugh a bit.
"Sure I see it! Every person can see it! What's so special about it?" Now it was Jonas's turn to look puzzled at him. What was special about colours and snow flakes? What was special about all these great things? They were something that let him feel emotions! Happiness! Sadness! Anger! Fear! Did that man feel nothing about it?
Jonas didn't answer on the man's question but just followed him to the doctor's house. The man went in after Jonas and led him into a room full of chairs, tables, white walls and magazines, what Jonas of course didn't know. That room was so cold for him because he couldn't feel any happiness because of the white walls. It was a strange place and he wondered why the people kept this room when it was so sad.
Another door on the left opened and a small boy with pale eyes toddled out of the room, directly into Jonas's direction. Jonas immediately kneeled down to him and hugged him, before he closed his eyes and held him tight as much as he could and without hurting him.
"Are you okay, Gabe?" Jonas asked and looked worried at Gabriel, but who was already grinning.
"Lolly! Lolly! Lolly!" Gabriel said and held a lollipop, not longer than his hand, up. Jonas watched what Gabriel was holding up and looked to the man with the pale eyes.
"What did they give him?" he asked him and watched the lollipop in his hand. But it wasn't the man who was answering but the doctor, who already watched them and smiled.
"That's a candy. Really sweet but loved by little kids. Do you want one too?"
The day passed easily and Jonas and Gabe sat in the big living room with the family and drank a hot cocoa. He had never taste it before but for some way, Jonas began to love it. He liked it, when the first swallow was sweet and slowly began to be bitter, before it ends in the taste of warm milk.
Jonas watched the small family. It was just a father and another girl with black hair, tied to one pigtail and both had the same pale eyes like him and Jonas. The young boy thought and decided to ask.
"Aren't there any mothers in the family unit?" Jonas asked and looked at the father. The father looked puzzled at him for a while and put his cup of cocoa back on the table.
"Family unit? You mean family?" the man asked. Jonas had to smile for no reason. He liked the word 'family' more than 'family unit'. It didn't sound so cold and loveless. Jonas began to nod.
The man smiled a bit. "My wife had died quiet a while ago. After ... that terrible thing had happened." Jonas looked at him. The woman had died? Was she be released from this village too? The Giver and him never talked about death in Elsewhere, because they never had time for that.
Jonas didn't dare to ask why she had died. This man could feel pain and Jonas knew what it meant to feel it. He didn't want to cause pain for him.
The man sighed a bit. "I think it's bedtime for you now, Rosemary." He talked to the little girl next to him, who must have been Rosemary and Jonas watched her for a moment. Like Lilly, she protested for being sent to bed in the most interesting moments but then she went into her own room and after Jonas had carried Gabriel to his own bed – this time Gabriel had just fallen asleep without crying – he went back into the living room and sat down on the couch.
The man sat down on the other couch in front of him and looked at Jonas for a while.
"What's your name, boy?" The man asked. Jonas looked at him for a while. In Elsewhere, names seemed to have meanings. Meanings, in his old community didn't exist.
"Jonas." He answered and looked at the man, not up to ask for his name, because the name of the adult had been never important.
"Where do your come from?" The man asked again. Jonas kept quiet for a moment, watching his hands and looked up at the man again.
"Me and Gabriel came from a community from Faraway. We came here because in our community things that you know doesn't exist. We ... We have no colour ... happiness ... anger ... all this different emotions ... and we have no love." Jonas swallowed and looked to the chimney for a moment. Then he looked back to the man.
"Please don't send us back ... we ... we don't want to. They would release us and ..." But Jonas broke up. In this moment he felt so much weakness and helplessness like he had never feel before. It was the typical weakness every child was allowed to feel when the child didn't know what to do. A thing what was impossible for his old community.
The man didn't do anything and didn't move but he just watched Jonas.
"How old are you, Jonas?" the man asked now. Jonas looked at him and thought. How old was he? The Ceremony of Twelve was one year ago what meant that he was 13 years old now. But what did age have for a meaning?
"I'm ... I'm 13 ... but –" Jonas couldn't finish his sentence because the man had already began to talk again.
"Just 5 years ago ... it was a stormy cold day like today ... people came into our village and burnt most of our houses down. We heard children scream, we ... we saw them when they pricked syringes into our kid's foreheads and we thought that they had died ..." the man kept quiet for a moment again and Jonas didn't know what to say. Did they people release their people? Were this people who came into their village, the people of his community?
"I searched for Rosemary and my son ... I looked around everywhere and I just had found Rosemary ... I could rescue her but not my son. I saw them prick a syringe into his forehead ... and I knew he was dead because he didn't move anymore ... but they took his dead body and went away with most of the other kids ..."
What did all this mean to Jonas now? Why did this man tell him that? Was release something else like he had thought? Didn't they kill people? Didn't his father kill the twin?
"My wife didn't get over that. She didn't accept that our son was gone. She had died of a broken heart ..." the man kept quiet again and looked up at Jonas then.
His voice shook. "My son had the same pale eyes as you, Jonas ... my son had the same name ..."
Jonas starred at the man. No, it was impossible! He was the son of a birthmother! It could never be true! Or could it? What if Jonas let it come true? What if Jonas starts to trust?
Jonas wanted to answer, but no word came out of him but a single sob. Jonas couldn't control himself anymore and he just began to cry. The man sat down next to him and hugged him and Jonas sank into the warmth of a father. Jonas didn't want to let him go. He didn't want to let his feelings pass so he just hugged him back and held him tight as much as he could.
Jonas had a family. He had someone who truly loved him.
The winter passed by and the spring came with its magnificent colours. And it was time for Jonas to go to school. To a school at Elsewhere for the first time of his life.
"Jonas! You are already late for school! Hurry up!" Jonas's father shouted up to Jonas's room and just seconds later, Jonas ran out of his room, putting his jacket on. He didn't want to come late for the first time of going to school so he ran after his father to the car.
A basket full of fresh red apples were on the kitchen table, orderless stacked but good-looking. Jonas ran back to it and grabbed one of them. He shortly threw the apple in the air and caught it again, before he ran back to his father, driving to school now.
An old man, dressed like the typical old man you could see on the streets of Paris and watched a little kid, playing ball with some other children. Next to the man a younger woman, probably his daughter, watched the boy proudly.
What Jonas didn't know at this moment, was, that the name of this young lady was Rosemary and the man next to her was called 'The Giver' in another time. But all that had passed now. The both of them actually had no memory of the community Faraway. The syringes didn't kill them. The syringes let them lose their memories about all they had known and let them live like a family. The syringe was a protection from the world Elsewhere. A protection, a perfect world helped to grow and exist.