Giver Trilogy 01 - The Giver by Lois Lowry

But this newchild that my family takes care of—his name's Gabriel?"
    "Yes, I know about Gabriel."
    "Well, he's right at the age where he's learning so much. He grabs toys when we hold them in front of him—my father says he's learning small-muscle control. And he's really cute."
    The Giver nodded.
    "But now that I can see colors, at least sometimes, I was just thinking: what if we could hold up things that were bright red, or bright yellow, and he could
choose?
Instead of the Sameness."
    "He might make wrong choices."
    "Oh." Jonas was silent for a minute. "Oh, I see what you mean. It wouldn't matter for a newchild's toy. But later it
does
matter, doesn't it? We don't dare to let people make choices of their own."
    "Not safe?" The Giver suggested.
    "Definitely not safe," Jonas said with certainty. "What if they were allowed to choose their own mate? And chose
wrong?
    "Or what if," he went on, almost laughing at the absurdity, "they chose their own
jobs?
"
    "Frightening, isn't it?" The Giver said.
    Jonas chuckled. "Very frightening. I can't even imagine it. We really have to protect people from wrong choices."
    "It's safer."
    "Yes," Jonas agreed. "Much safer."
    But when the conversation turned to other things, Jonas was left, still, with a feeling of frustration that he didn't understand.
    He found that he was often angry, now: irrationally angry at his groupmates, that they were satisfied with their lives which had none of the vibrance his own was taking on. And he was angry at himself, that he could not change that for them.
    He tried. Without asking permission from The Giver, because he feared—or knew—that it would be denied, he tried to give his new awareness to his friends.
    "Asher," Jonas said one morning, "look at those flowers very carefully." They were standing beside a bed of geraniums planted near the Hall of Open Records. He put his hands on Asher's shoulders, and concentrated on the red of the petals, trying to hold it as long as he could, and trying at the same time to transmit the awareness of red to his friend.
    "What's the matter?" Asher asked uneasily. "Is something wrong?" He moved away from Jonas's hands. It was extremely rude for one citizen to touch another outside of family units.
    "No, nothing. I thought for a minute that they were wilting, and we should let the Gardening Crew know they needed more watering." Jonas sighed, and turned away.
    One evening he came home from his training weighted with new knowledge. The Giver had chosen a startling and disturbing memory that day. Under the touch of his hands, Jonas had found himself suddenly in a place that was completely alien: hot and windswept under a vast
blue sky. There were rufts of sparse grass, a few bushes and rocks, and nearby he could see an area of thicker vegetation: broad, low trees outlined against the sky. He could hear noises: the sharp crack of weapons—he perceived the word
guns
—and then shouts, and an immense crashing thud as something fell, tearing branches from the trees.
    He heard voices calling to one another. Peering from the place where he stood hidden behind some shrubbery, he was reminded of what The Giver had told him, that there had been a time when flesh had different colors. Two of these men had dark brown skin; the others were light. Going closer, he watched them hack the rusks from a motionless elephant on the ground and haul them away, spattered with blood. He felt himself overwhelmed with a new perception of the color he knew as red.
    Then the men were gone, speeding toward the horizon in a vehicle that spit pebbles from its whirling tires. One hit his forehead and stung him there. But the memory continued, though Jonas ached now for it to end.
    Now he saw another elephant emerge from the place where it had stood hidden in the trees. Very slowly it walked to the mutilated body and looked down. With its sinuous trunk it stroked the huge corpse; then it reached up, broke some leafy branches with a snap, and draped