For some reason I'm nervous about this story again, so please review! I'm begging you peoples! By the way, everyone who has reviewed, thanks!
Disclaimer:The dayI own the Giver will be the daypigs will be able to fly.
Around mid-afternoon, Brooke came over and pulled me aside.
"I suppose you would be the draft board here to make me fight in Chief Elder Brooke's War against Nature. I shouldn't have tried to hide; I just knew I would get caught one day. Although it was nice of you to come in person. Most draft boards send a letter; it's so impersonal."
Brooke rolled her eyes.
"Don't joke about war like that! It's been twenty-nine hours since the War's been over! How can you ignore the memories of the past fifteen years?" she said aggressively.
I suddenly turned serious.
"How can you possibly say that I'm ignoring the War? How can I ignore it, when I'm the person who's arguably lost the most! My wife, son, mother, and sisters were all killed by alpha bombs on the same day! My daughter died on the way here, my camp was robbed, and I managed to survive the plague caused by radiation. A plague with a 98 mortality rate! Don't lecture me about ignoring the War; I've done my part by surviving at all! The only way to open my mouth without screaming is through sarcasm, and I'm sorry if that doesn't fit into your perfect world, but I look out for one person now, and that's me." Brooke looked a little frightened at my sudden outburst, and to be quite honest, I had scared myself. I was always outgoing, but had never been one to lash out at people. War changes everything.
"Alan, I'm so sorry. I had no idea," Brooke said in a soft and sincere voice. "But what you have just told me makes my mission all the more important. Everyone has suffered from the War and I believe that they need a distraction."
"So you want me to come up with a comedy routine?"
"You interrupted, Alan. Besides that's not at all what I'm trying to say. The suffering you have gone through has brought on great wisdom. Oh, don't look so surprised, you're wise, you simply hide it beneath your sarcastic outer shell. You also have great intelligence, with a straight A+ average through your entire school career, I know. You have integrity and you certainly contain courage in spades. You can still see colors can't you?"
The abrupt change in topic caught me off guard.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Last night you mentioned that we couldn't build anything without yellow bulldozers. You can still see color?" she clarified.
"Of course I can still see color. Can't everybody?" I asked, growing more confused with each passing sentence.
"No, Alan," Brooke said. "The alpha radiation not only bleached everyone's skin, but it also made everybody colorblind. That is, everybody except you. Therefore, it must be a special quality you have; a certain capacity to see beyond. It probably also has to do with your eyes. They're blue while everyone else's are brown."
Capacity to see beyond? At that point, I was sure that Brooke had gone mental right in front of my eyes. Where was the bossy Chief Elder that had been directing everyone since the war ended? I had absolutely no idea were she was going with this.
"As a contributing member of this fledgling community, you're not going to get away with a free ride. Instead you will be our first Receiver of Memory."
"The first what?" I asked.
"The job of Receiver is the most honored in the community. You will bear everyone's memories of the past so that they can concentrate on the present and I can introduce the Sameness. You will gain even more wisdom from the memories and will be called upon to help the Elders make decisions from time to time. You may ask any question of anyone and be answered. You may disregard the rues about rudeness, but then again, you probably would anyway," she said with a wry smile.
"Wait, back up. Sameness?" I asked.
Brooke grinned as if she had just gotten a two hundred on a spelling test.
"Don't you see? There will be no war ever again this way! If everyone's the same, you can't attack someone else for being different! It's completely foolproof! You will begin receiving the memories tonight. By the way, you have no say in the matter. As Chief Elder, I am officially assigning, no wrong word, selecting you to be the new Receiver of Memory. See you tonight."
Then she walked away, leaving me shocked and for once, with nothing to say and dreading what the night would bring.