The Giver

The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It’s the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared. 

They have never known pain, he thought. The realization made him feel desperately lonely. 

"I liked the feeling of love,” he confessed. He glanced nervously at the speaker on the wall, reassuring himself that no one was listening. “I wish we still had that,” he whispered. “Of course,” he added quickly, “I do understand that it wouldn’t work very well. And that it’s much better to be organized the way we are now. I can see that it was a dangerous way to live." 

The life where nothing was ever unexpected. Or inconvenient. Or unusual. The life without colour, pain or past. 

If everything’s the same, then there aren’t any choices! I want to wake up in the morning and decide things! 

You may lie. 

There was never any comfortable way to mention or discuss one’s successes without breaking the rule against bragging, even if one didn’t mean to. 

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.