The Giver, the final video.
Chapters 21-23.
Chapter 21
It would work.
They could make it work, Jonas told him-
self again and again throughout the day.
But that evening everything changed.
All of it — all the
things they had thought through so meticulously
— fell
apart.
That night, Jonas was forced to flee.
He left the dwelling
shortly after the sky became dark and the
community still.
It
was terribly dangerous because some of the
work crews
were still about, but he moved stealthily
and silently, stay-
ing in the shadows, making his way past the
darkened
dwellings and the empty Central Plaza, toward
the river.
Beyond the Plaza he could see the House of
the Old, with
the Annex behind it, outlined against the
night sky.
But he
could not stop there.
There was no time.
Every minute
counted now, and every minute must take him
farther from
the community.
Now he was on the bridge, hunched over on
the bicycle,
pedaling steadily.
He could see the dark, churning water
far below.
He felt, surprisingly, no fear, nor any regret
at leaving the community behind.
But he felt a very deep sadness that
he had left his closest friend behind.
He knew that in the
danger of his escape he must be absolutely
silent; but with
his heart and mind, he called back and hoped
that with his
capacity for hearing-beyond, The Giver would
know that
Jonas had said goodbye.
It had happened at the evening meal.
The family unit was
eating together as always: Lily chattering
away, Mother and
Father making their customary comments (and
lies, Jonas
knew) about the day.
Nearby, Gabriel played happily on the
floor, babbling his baby talk, looking with
glee now and
then toward Jonas, obviously delighted to
have him back
after the unexpected night away from the dwelling.
Father glanced down toward the toddler.
"Enjoy it, little
guy," he said.
"This is your last night as visitor."
"What do you mean?"
Jonas asked him.
Father sighed with disappointment.
"Well, you know he
wasn't here when you got home this morning
because we
had him stay overnight at the Nurturing Center.
It seemed
like a good opportunity, with you gone, to
give it a try.
He'd been sleeping so soundly."
"Didn't it go well?"
Mother asked sympathetically.
Father gave a rueful laugh.
"That's an understatement.
It
was a disaster.
He cried all night, apparently.
The night
crew couldn't handle it.
They were really frazzled by the
time I got to work."
"Gabe, you naughty thing," Lily said, with
a scolding
little cluck toward the grinning toddler on
the floor.
"So,"
Father went on, "we obviously had to make
the
decision.
Even I voted for Gabriel's release when we
had
the meeting this afternoon."
Jonas put down his fork and stared at his
father.
"Re-
lease?" he asked.
Father nodded.
"We certainly gave it our best try, didn't
we?"
"Yes, we did," Mother agreed emphatically.
Lily nodded in agreement, too.
Jonas worked at keeping his voice absolutely
calm.
"When?" he asked.
"When will he be released?"
"First thing tomorrow morning.
We have to start our
preparations for the Naming Ceremony, so we
thought we'd
get this taken care of right away.
"It's bye-bye to you, Gabe, in the morning,"
Father had
said, in his sweet, sing-song voice.
Jonas reached the opposite side of the river,
stopped
briefly, and looked back.
The community where his entire
life had been lived lay behind him now, sleeping.
At dawn,
the orderly, disciplined life he had always
known would
continue again, without him.
The life where nothing was
ever unexpected.
Or inconvenient.
Or unusual.
The life
without color, pain, or past.
He pushed firmly again at the pedal with his
foot and
continued riding along the road.
It was not safe to spend
time looking back.
He thought of the rules he had broken
so far: enough that if he were caught, now,
he would be
condemned.
First, he had left the dwelling at night.
A major trans-
gression.
Second, he had robbed the community of food:
a very serious crime, even though what he
had taken was left-
overs, set out on the dwelling doorsteps for
collection.
Third, he had stolen his father's bicycle.
He had hesi-
tated for a moment, standing beside the bikeport
in the
darkness, not wanting anything of his father's
and uncer-
tain, as well, whether he could comfortably
ride the larger
bike when he was so accustomed to his own.
But it was necessary because it had the child
seat at-
tached to the back.
And he had taken Gabriel, too.
He could feel the little head nudge his back,
bouncing
gently against him as he rode.
Gabriel was sleeping
soundly, strapped into the seat.
Before he had left the
dwelling, he had laid his hands firmly on
Gabe's back and
transmitted to him the most soothing memory
he could: a
slow-swinging hammock under palm trees on
an island
someplace, at evening, with a rhythmic sound
of languid
water lapping hypnotically against a beach
nearby.
As the
memory seeped from him into the newchild,
he could feel
Gabe's sleep ease and deepen.
There had been no stir at all
when Jonas lifted him from the crib and placed
him gently
into the molded seat.
He knew that he had the remaining hours of
night be-
fore they would be aware of his escape.
So he rode hard,
steadily, willing himself not to tire as the
minutes and miles
passed.
There had been no time to receive the memories
he
and The Giver had counted on, of strength
and courage.
So
he relied on what he had, and hoped it would
be enough.
He circled the outlying communities, their
dwellings
dark.
Gradually the distances between communities
wid-
ened, with longer stretches of empty road.
His legs ached
at first; then, as time passed, they became
numb.
At dawn Gabriel began to stir.
They were in an isolated
place; fields on either side of the road were
dotted with
thickets of trees here and there.
He saw a stream, and made
his way to it across a rutted, bumpy meadow;
Gabriel,
wide awake now, giggled as the bicycle jolted
him up and
down.
Jonas unstrapped Gabe, lifted him from the
bike, and
watched him investigate the grass and twigs
with delight.
Carefully he hid the bicycle in thick bushes.
"Morning meal, Gabe!"
He unwrapped some of the food
and fed them both.
Then he filled the cup he had brought
with water from the stream and held it for
Gabriel to drink.
He drank thirstily himself, and sat by the
stream, watching
the newchild play.
He was exhausted.
He knew he must sleep, resting his
own muscles and preparing himself for more
hours on the
bicycle.
It would not be safe to travel in daylight.
They would be looking for him soon.
He found a place deeply hidden in the trees,
took the
newchild there, and lay down, holding Gabriel
in his arms.
Gabe struggled cheerfully as if it were a
wrestling game,
the kind they had played back in the dwelling,
with tickles
and laughter.
"Sorry, Gabe," Jonas told him.
"I know it's morning,
and I know you just woke up.
But we have to sleep now."
He cuddled the small body close to him, and
rubbed the
little back.
He murmured to Gabriel soothingly.
Then he pressed his hands firmly and transmitted
a memory of
deep, contented exhaustion.
Gabriel's head nodded, after a
moment, and fell against Jonas's chest.
Together the fugitives slept through the first
dangerous
day.
The most terrifying thing was the planes.
By now, days
had passed; Jonas no longer knew how many.
The journey
had become automatic: the sleep by days, hidden
in un-
derbrush and trees; the finding of water;
the careful divi-
sion of scraps of food, augmented by what
he could find in
the fields.
And the endless, endless miles on the bicycle
by
night.
His leg muscles were taut now.
They ached when he
settled himself to sleep.
But they were stronger, and he
stopped now less often to rest.
Sometimes he paused and
lifted Gabriel down for a brief bit of exercise,
running
down the road or through a field together
in the dark.
But
always, when he returned, strapped the uncomplaining
toddler into the seat again, and remounted,
his legs were
ready.
So he had enough strength of his own, and
had not
needed what The Giver might have provided,
had there
been time.
But when the planes came, he wished that he
could have
received the courage.
He knew they were search planes.
They flew so low that
they woke him with the noise of their engines,
and some-
times, looking out and up fearfully from the
hiding places,
he could almost see the faces of the searchers.
He knew that they could not see color, and
that their
flesh, as well as Gabriel's light golden curls,
would be no
more than smears of gray against the colorless
foliage.
But
he remembered from his science and technology
studies at
school that the search planes used heat-seeking
devices
which could identify body warmth and would
hone in on
two humans huddled in shrubbery.
So always, when he heard the aircraft sound,
he reached
to Gabriel and transmitted memories of snow,
keeping some
for himself.
Together they became cold; and when the
planes were gone, they would shiver, holding
each other,
until sleep came again.
Sometimes, urging the memories into Gabriel,
Jonas felt
that they were more shallow, a little weaker
than they had
been.
It was what he had hoped, and what he and
The Giver
had planned: that as he moved away from the
community,
he would shed the memories and leave them
be-hind for the
people.
But now, when he needed them, when the planes
came, he tried hard to cling to what he still
had, of cold,
and to use it for their survival.
Usually the aircraft came by day, when they
were hid-
ing.
But he was alert at night, too, on the road,
always lis-
tening intently for the sound of the engines.
Even Gabriel
listened, and would call out, "Plane!
Plane!" sometimes
before Jonas had heard the terrifying noise.
When the air-
craft searchers came, as they did occasionally,
during the
night as they rode, Jonas sped to the nearest
tree or bush,
dropped to the ground, and made himself and
Gabriel cold.
But it was sometimes a frighteningly close
call.
As he pedaled through the nights, through
isolated
landscape now, with the communities far behind
and no
sign of human habitation around him or ahead,
he was
constantly vigilant, looking for the next
nearest hiding place
should the sound of engines come.
But the frequency of the planes diminished.
They came
less often, and flew, when they did come,
less slowly, as if
the search had become haphazard and no longer
hopeful.
Finally there was an entire day and night
when they did not
come at all.
Chapter 22
Now the landscape was changing.
It was a subtle change,
hard to identify at first.
The road was narrower, and bumpy,
apparently no longer tended by road crews.
It was harder,
suddenly, to balance on the bike, as the front
wheel wobbled
over stones and ruts.
One night Jonas fell, when the bike jolted
to a sudden
stop against a rock.
He grabbed instinctively for Gabriel; and
the newchild, strapped tightly in his seat,
was uninjured,
only frightened when the bike fell to its
side.
But Jonas's
ankle was twisted, and his knees were scraped
and raw,
blood seeping through his tom trousers.
Painfully he righted
himself and the bike, and reassured Gabe.
Tentatively he began to ride in daylight.
He had forgot-
ten the fear of the searchers, who seemed
to have diminished
into the past.
But now there were new fears; the unfamiliar
landscape held hidden, unknown perils.
Trees became more numerous, and the forests
beside the
road were dark and thick with mystery.
They saw streams
more frequently now and stopped often to drink.
Jonas
carefully washed his injured knees, wincing
as he rubbed at
the raw flesh.
The constant ache of his swollen ankle was
eased when he soaked it occasionally in the
cold water that
rushed through roadside gullies.
He was newly aware that Gabriel's safety depended
en-
tirely upon his own continued strength.
They saw their first waterfall, and for the
first time
wildlife.
"Plane!
Plane!"
Gabriel called, and Jonas turned swiftly
into the trees, though he had not seen planes
in days, and
he did not hear an aircraft engine now.
When he stopped
the bicycle in the shrubbery and turned to
grab Gabe, he
saw the small chubby arm pointing toward the
sky.
Terrified, he looked up, but it was not a
plane at all.
Though he had never seen one before, he identified
it from
his fading memories, for The Giver had given
them to him
often.
It was a bird.
Soon there were many birds along the way,
soaring
overhead, calling.
They saw deer; and once, beside the road,
looking at them curious and unafraid, a small
reddish-
brown creature with a thick tail, whose name
Jonas did not
know.
He slowed the bike and they stared at one
an-other
until the creature turned away and disappeared
into the
woods.
All of it was new to him.
After a life of Sameness and
predictability, he was awed by the surprises
that lay beyond
each curve of the road.
He slowed the bike again and again
to look with wonder at wildflowers, to enjoy
the throaty
warble of a new bird nearby, or merely to
watch the way
wind shifted the leaves in the trees.
During his twelve years
in the community, he had never felt such simple
moments
of exquisite happiness.
But there were desperate fears building in
him now as
well.
The most relentless of his new fears was that
they
would starve.
Now that they had left the cultivated fields
behind them, it was almost impossible to find
food.
They
finished the meager store of potatoes and
carrots they had
saved from the last agricultural area, and
now they were
always hungry.
Jonas knelt by a stream and tried without
success to
catch a fish with his hands.
Frustrated, he threw rocks into
the water, knowing even as he did so that
it was useless.
Finally, in desperation, he fashioned a makeshift
net,
looping the strands of Gabriel's blanket around
a curved
stick.
After countless tries, the net yielded two
flopping sil-
very fish.
Methodically Jonas hacked them to pieces with
a
sharp rock and fed the raw shreds to himself
and to Ga-
briel.
They ate some berries, and tried without success
to
catch a bird.
At night, while Gabriel slept beside him,
Jonas lay
awake, tortured by hunger, and remembered
his life in the
community where meals were delivered to each
dwelling
every day.
He tried to use the flagging power of his
memory to re-
create meals, and managed brief, tantalizing
fragments:
banquets with huge roasted meats; birthday
parties with
thick-frosted cakes; and lush fruits picked
and eaten, sun-
warmed and dripping, from trees.
But when the memory glimpses subsided, he
was left
with the gnawing, painful emptiness.
Jonas remembered,
suddenly and grimly, the time in his childhood
when he had
been chastised for misusing a word.
The word had been
"starving."
You have never been starving, he had been
told.
You will never be starving.
Now he was.
If he had stayed in the community, he would
not be.
It was as simple as that.
Once he had yearned
for choice.
Then, when he had had a choice, he had made
the wrong one: the choice to leave.
And now he was
starving.
But if he had stayed ...
His thoughts continued.
If he had stayed, he would have
starved in other ways.
He would have lived a life hungry
for feelings, for color, for love.
And Gabriel?
For Gabriel there would have been no life
at all.
So there had not really been a choice.
It became a struggle to ride the bicycle as
Jonas weak-
ened from lack of food, and realized at the
same time that
he was encountering something he had for a
long time
yearned to see: hills.
His sprained ankle throbbed as he
forced the pedal downward in an effort that
was almost
beyond him.
And the weather was changing.
It rained for two days.
Jonas had never seen rain, though he had experienced
it
often in the memories.
He had liked those rains, enjoyed
the new feeling of it, but this was different.
He and Gabriel
became cold and wet, and it was hard to get
dry, even when
sunshine occasionally followed.
Gabriel had not cried during the long frightening
jour-
ney.
Now he did.
He cried because he was hungry and cold
and terribly weak.
Jonas cried, too, for the same reasons,
and another reason as well.
He wept because he was afraid
now that he could not save Gabriel.
He no longer cared
about himself.
Chapter 23
Jonas felt more and more certain that the
destination lay
ahead of him, very near now in the night that
was ap-
proaching.
None of his senses confirmed it.
He saw nothing
ahead except the endless ribbon of road unfolding
in
twisting narrow curves.
He heard no sound ahead.
Yet he felt it: felt that Elsewhere was not
far away.
But
he had little hope left that he would be able
to reach it.
His
hope diminished further when the sharp, cold
air began to
blur and thicken with swirling white.
Gabriel, wrapped in his inadequate blanket,
was
hunched, shivering, and silent in his little
seat.
Jonas
stopped the bike wearily, lifted the child
down, and real-
ized with heartbreak how cold and weak Gabe
had be-
come.
Standing in the freezing mound that was thickening
around his numb feet, Jonas opened his own
tunic, held
Gabriel to his bare chest, and tied the tom
and dirty blanket
around them both.
Gabriel moved feebly against him and
whimpered briefly into the silence that surrounded
them.
Dimly, from a nearly forgotten perception
as blurred as
the substance itself, Jonas recalled what
the whiteness was.
"It's called snow, Gabe," Jonas whispered.
"Snow-
flakes.
They fall down from the sky, and they're very
beautiful."
There was no response from the child who had
once
been so curious and alert.
Jonas looked down through the
dusk at the little head against his chest.
Gabriel's curly hair
was matted and filthy, and there were tearstains
out-lined
in dirt on his pale cheeks.
His eyes were closed.
As Jonas
watched, a snowflake drifted down and was
caught briefly
for a moment's sparkle in the tiny fluttering
eye-lashes.
Wearily he remounted the bicycle.
A steep hill loomed
ahead.
In the best of conditions, the hill would
have been a
difficult, demanding ride.
But now the rapidly deepening
snow obscured the narrow road and made the
ride im-
possible.
His front wheel moved forward imperceptibly
as
he pushed on the pedals with his numb, exhausted
legs.
But the bicycle stopped.
It would not move.
He got off and let it drop sideways into the
snow.
For a
moment he thought how easy it would be to
drop beside it
himself, to let himself and Gabriel slide
into the softness of
snow, the darkness of night, the warm comfort
of sleep.
But he had come this far.
He must try to go on.
The memories had fallen behind him now, escaping
from his protection to return to the people
of his commu-
nity.
Were there any left at all?
Could he hold onto a last
bit of warmth?
Did he still have the strength to Give?
Could Gabriel still Receive?
He pressed his hands into Gabriel's back and
tried to
remember sunshine.
For a moment it seemed that nothing
came to him, that his power was completely
gone.
Then it
flickered suddenly, and he felt tiny tongues
of heat begin to
creep across and into his frozen feet and
legs.
He felt his
face begin to glow and the tense, cold skin
of his arms and
hands relax.
For a fleeting second he felt that he wanted
to
keep it for himself, to let himself bathe
in sunlight, unbur-
dened by anything or anyone else.
But the moment passed and was followed by
an urge, a
need, a passionate yearning to share the warmth
with the
one person left for him to love.
Aching from the effort, he
forced the memory of warmth into the thin,
shivering body
in his arms.
Gabriel stirred.
For a moment they both were bathed in
warmth and renewed strength as they stood
hugging each
other in the blinding snow.
Jonas began to walk up the hill.
The memory was agonizingly brief.
He had trudged no
more than a few yards through the night when
it was gone
and they were cold again.
But his mind was alert now.
Warming himself ever so
briefly had shaken away the lethargy and resignation
and
restored his will to survive.
He began to walk faster on feet
that he could no longer feel.
But the hill was treacherously
steep; he was impeded by the snow and his
own lack of
strength.
He didn't make it very far before he stumbled
and
fell forward.
On his knees, unable to rise, Jonas tried
a second time.
His consciousness grasped at a wisp of another
warm
memory, and tried desperately to hold it there,
to enlarge it,
and pass it into Gabriel.
His spirits and strength lifted with
the momentary warmth and he stood.
Again, Gabriel stirred
against him as he began to climb.
But the memory faded, leaving him colder than
before.
If only he had had time to receive more warmth
from
The Giver before he escaped!
Maybe there would be more
left for him now.
But there was no purpose in if-onlys.
His
entire concentration now had to be on moving
his feet,
warming Gabriel and himself, and going forward.
He climbed, stopped, and warmed them both
briefly
again, with a tiny scrap of memory that seemed
certainly to
be all he had left.
The top of the hill seemed so far away, and
he did not
know what lay beyond.
But there was nothing left to do but
continue.
He trudged upward.
As he approached the summit of the hill at
last, some-
thing began to happen.
He was not warmer; if anything, he
felt more numb and more cold.
He was not less exhausted;
on the contrary, his steps were leaden, and
he could barely
move his freezing, tired legs.
But he began, suddenly, to feel happy.
He began to re-
call happy times.
He remembered his parents and his sister.
He remembered his friends, Asher and Fiona.
He
remembered The Giver.
Memories of joy flooded through him suddenly.
He reached the place where the hill crested
and he could
feel the ground under his snow-covered feet
become level.
It
would not be uphill anymore.
"We're almost there, Gabriel," he whispered,
feeling
quite certain without knowing why.
"I remember this place,
Gabe."
And it was true.
But it was not a grasping of a thin
and burdensome recollection; this was different.
This was
something that he could keep.
It was a memory of his own.
He hugged Gabriel and rubbed him briskly,
warming
him, to keep him alive.
The wind was bitterly cold.
The
snow swirled, blurring his vision.
But somewhere ahead,
through the blinding storm, he knew there
was warmth and
light.
Using his final strength, and a special knowledge
that
was deep inside him, Jonas found the sled
that was waiting
for them at the top of the hill.
Numbly his hands fumbled
for the rope.
He settled himself on the sled and hugged
Gabe close.
The hill was steep but the snow was powdery
and soft, and
he knew that this time there would be no ice,
no fall, no
pain.
Inside his freezing body, his heart surged
with hope.
They started down.
Jonas felt himself losing consciousness and
with his
whole being willed himself to stay upright
atop the sled,
clutching Gabriel, keeping him safe.
The runners sliced
through the snow and the wind whipped at his
face as they
sped in a straight line through an incision
that seemed to
lead to the final destination, the place that
he had always
felt was waiting, the Elsewhere that held
their future and
their past.
He forced his eyes open as they went downward,
down-
ward, sliding, and all at once he could see
lights, and he
recognized them now.
He knew they were shining through
the windows of rooms, that they were the red,
blue, and
yellow lights that twinkled from trees in
places where fam-
ilies created and kept memories, where they
celebrated
love.
Downward, downward, faster and faster.
Suddenly he was aware with certainty and joy
that below, ahead, they
were waiting for him; and that they were waiting,
too, for the
baby.
For the first time, he heard something that
he knew to
be music.
Fie heard people singing.
Behind him, across vast distances of space
and time, from
the place he had left, he thought he heard
music too.
But
perhaps 
it was only an echo.
