Your Peaceful Present Exposes a Horrible Future
From The Long Walk, by Steven King (writing as Richard Bachman):
The word that one of the Walkers had been ticketed out ran through the spectators, and for some reason they began to cheer even more loudly. Thin applause crackled like popcorn. Garraty wondered if it was embarrassing, being shot in front of people, and guessed by the time you got to that you probably didn’t give a tin whistle. Curley hadn’t looked as if he gave a tin whistle, certainly. Having to relieve yourself, though. That would be bad. Garraty decided not to think about that.
The hands on his watch now stood firmly straight up at noon. They crossed a rusty iron bridge spanning a high, dry gorge, and on the other side was a sign reading: ENTERING LIMESTONE CITY LIMITS — WELCOME, LONG WALKERS!
Some of the boys cheered, but Garraty saved his breath.
The road widened and the Walkers spread across it comfortably, the groups loosening up a little. After all, Curley was three miles back now.
There’s a sign on the highway at the edge of the city where I live. COLLEGE BASKETBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONS…
You have done well, our sign says. We honor your skill in sport, our culture says.
In Stephen King’s The Long Walk, boys from across the country enter a yearly competition with the hope of winning The Prize. They walk until they can’t walk any further. If they stop, they get their ticket. 100 boys are chosen to participate. Only one survives the walk.
The sign in Limestone isn’t unlike the COLLEGE BASKETBALL I pass or any of the similar roadway staples outside towns across the country. We celebrate the people we’re proud of. So do the people of King’s future.
What separates our present from theirs are the sentiments behind the printed capital letters:
We accept the competition.
We’re call the boys ‘brave.’
We love the spectacle.
We embrace the slaughter.
We encourage the march.
We need the entertainment.
We want children to die.
The walkers don’t read those words as they scrape past the sign. Nevertheless, they feel them. You feel them. You fear that some of our sentiments with our own signs match exactly those of Limestone.
The message from Limestone is one that reflects a present you know — one that’s tame and sane and of course would never support this kind of horror. It also reflects a future you haven’t entirely absorbed yet, at only a few hours into the year’s walk — one tied to the baser instincts of humans where strongmen lead and grotesque feats of ability are looked forward to.
King could have written about the contrast between the novel’s present and our own. He could have spent pages on the topic of brutality and cultural expectation and acceptance. Instead, he used a symbol familiar to his readers to make a much more concise statement.
WELCOME, LONG WALKERS showcases an entire society in a few feet by feet square. Even without the detail of the rest of the novel, its foreboding is horrifying.