The Ones Who Don't Walk Away
by Sean Vivier
A lot is made of those who walk away from the city. And I get it. I do. It's a shock to learn the city's secret. That a child must suffer for our prosperity. Of course it breaks a lot of people. Of course they walk away. Of course they abandon their civic duty.
Sure there are those who go about their business as before. Who bury the new knowledge so they can return to their normal lives and go about their days. To keep their sanity. To convince themselves they're still good people. To follow the easiest course.
But not all of us can ignore the fundamental injustice, and not all of us have the heart to leave. Not all of us have the heart to abandon our home to damnation. Some of us choose to stay and fight for her soul.
We are the ones who cannot live in such a place without offering a challenge to its corrupt way of life. And we are the ones who cannot leave knowing we did nothing to try to stop it.
There are those who use their voices. Who argue with the comfortable who do nothing, who write opinions and marshal all their arguments both logical and moral against the cruelty at the heart of our city. They, too, do their part.
There are those, a small number, who plot violence. But they get nowhere with it. Still, that child suffers, only now more suffer with her. Our opponents take them and use them as proof that no one need pay attention to our ideas.
There are those who organize campaigns and who run for election if only to end the torture of innocents. They do not always win, but sometimes, here and there, they do. We have not yet made change, but our numbers grow, and so too our voices in the halls of power.
There are those who try to find the tortured child and rescue her. But not everyone knows how to find the place of torment, and fewer know how to release the bonds without the complete obliteration of the city, the tormented child included.
