Jonas felt nothing unusual at first. He felt only the light touch of the old man's hands on his back. He tried to relax, to breathe evenly. The room was absolutely silent; and for a moment Jonas feared that he might disgrace himself now, on the first day of his training, by falling asleep. Then he felt something. He was overcome with such a feeling, a jittery feeling, an ecstatic feeling, an excited feeling. He realized that the touch of the hands were brimming with, suddenly, an overwhelming, anticipating vibration, In the same instant, breathing in, he felt the air change, humid and stuffy, he sensed the presence of many, many people, more people than in the entire Community put together. He licked his lips and in doing so, his tongue touched the salty, hot air. It was all very startling, but he was not at all frightened, now. He was… exuberant and anxious, as if preparing for something to happen. Now, too, he could feel all of the beings swirling around his entire body. He felt small ones, whom couldn't be more than Fives or Sixes, push and grab his hands which laid at his sides, and over his straight back. The touch of the man's hands seemed to have disappeared. Now, he was aware of an entirely new sensation: Worry? No, because he was overjoyed and without any concern, or remorse. His facial muscles clenched, his heart leaped faster. Such an emotion welled inside of him that he began to follow the small ones, and run away across the strange, dimly lit land. He looked around; he appeared to be in a conically shaped structure, made out of the strangest materials, like a stronger version of his clothes. The whole area seemed to be teeming with life, everything moving and flickering, sometimes like the apple and the books on the shelf in the Annexe (which seemed so, so far away now), and sometimes glistening with the people themselves. The sensation made him smile. One part of his consciousness knew that he was still lying there, on the bed, in the Annexe room. Yet another, separate part of his being was upright now, in a sitting position, and beneath him he could feel that he was not on the soft decorated bedcovering at all, but rather surrounded by a plethora of comical figures, some with oversized characteristics, a male with a nose the size of that faithful apple. Jonas's hands now held a thick stub of torn paper, softened by the perspiration of his palms, stating "Admit One". And he could see, though his eyes were closed. He could see the oddly festive ``myriad of strange folk flying through the air around him, and he could see a variety of beasts and monsters: animated, live interpretations of the Comfort Objects possessed by his younger sister and her playmates. His breath became shortened and sparse because of the accumulated awe. Beyond, through the swirl of wild artisans and the grown males acting like a young Asher (what he now, somehow, perceived as the thing the old man had spoken of—clowns) he could look out to see all of the people that were previously rushing about him in semi organized structures of seating arrangements, all encircling a man with a grotesquely out of proportion two toned head dress that's pattern matched the bizarre surrounding fabric. "Ringmaster", his newly found intuition noted him.
Tentatively he opened his eyes and realized that he was still on the bed, that he had not moved at all.
-Whitney Little
English Essay
2/24/11
Jonas's Memory, Pseudo of The Giver.