The Departure

The day this man was born I felt a shudder of joy run through the cosmos, a feeling of light and airiness came do me in the depths of my abode. Few through the universe felt this touch, and none but myself felt it the day he left his home planet, the moon Anarres for the terrestrial planet of Urras. This story is for the history books, therefore for those of you who do not know Urras is a planet governed by democracy and other dominant forms of government, much like the home world earth. Anarres on the other hand is different in nearly every imaginable way. Primarily though, it is governed by none; it is a utopian anarchism. The following is a segment of the very best of all submissions from across Anarres: There is a buzz in the air as I write from the knee high wall around the only spaceport of Anarres with hundreds of protesters surrounding me hoping for a glimpse at the most famous man from our planet, to touch him, to speak to him… to kill him. Right now, (although no one here knows it) the infamous Dr. Shevek is walking up behind us with not a care in the world. He has no idea that the entire population of the solar system is watching his every move, categorizing and studying each step. All the talk of the noisier of people deciding what to do when they get their hands around his throat, whether to kill him first or to make him suffer for what he stands for. As he walked through our group we had no idea who he was, he looked nothing like the outcast everyone had imagined. Who could think that this lanky and skinny man would be the first man to make the return trip to Urras in seven generations and be the most hated and loved in the history of these planets. We didn’t even know who he was until he was almost at the spaceship, a small figure from our perspective, walking gently yet purposefully toward the great hunk of steel, ceramics and glass. All I could think (I imagine everyone else was thinking the same) was that we had to get to him, to stall or stop him. Needless to say, we didn’t, although after his massive transport lifted off we did make one consensus; that man will never fit in here, and although we do not speak for Urras we know it will be the same there.

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