Lesson 6 The Landscape of Stories
Harrison Bergeron
THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was ____ equal.
They weren't only equal before the law―they were ____ in every other way.
Nobody was smarter, better looking, stronger, or ____ than anybody else.
The new constitution of the United States and the agents of the Handicapper General(HG) guaranteed all this ____ equality.
____ things about life still weren't quite equal, however.
Some months were colder or hotter than ____.
And it was in the warm month of April that the HG men ____ George and Hazel Bergeron's nineteen-year-old son Harrison away.
It was tragic,
It was ____, all right, but George and Hazel couldn't think about it very hard.
Hazel had a perfectly average intelligence, which meant she ____ think about anything except in short bursts.
And George, while his intelligence was ____ above normal, had a little handicap radio in his ear that made it difficult for him to concentrate.
He was made by law to wear it at all ____. It was tuned to a government transmitter.
Every twenty seconds or so, the transmitter would send out some sharp noise to keep ____ like George from taking unfair advantage of their brains.
George and ____ were watching television.
There were ____ on Hazel's cheeks, but she'd forgotten for the moment why she was crying.
Ballerinas danced across a television screen. "BUZZ!" went the ____ in George's ear.
Gone were his thoughts. "That was a real pretty dance they just did," ____ Hazel.
"Huh?" said George. "That dance―it was nice," said ____. "Yup," said George.
He tried to think a little about the ballerinas.
They weren't ____ very good.
Anybody ____ have done as good a job.
They had big weights holding them down, so they ____ jump high.
They had masks on their faces so that no ____ might see the beauty inside.
George was toying with the vague ____ that maybe dancers shouldn't be handicapped.
But he didn't get very far before another ____ scattered his thoughts.
"BUZZ! ____!" went the transmitter in his ear.
____ heard the sound from across the room.
"I'd like to hear those noises," she said, a little enviously because she had no radio in her ____.
"If I were Diana ____ Glampers, the Handicapper General, you know what I'd do?" she continued.
"I'd ____ beautiful chimes in people's ears. People would be happier that way. I'd make a good HG, I think."
"Well, as good as anybody else, I guess," ____ George.
He began to think ____ of his abnormal son Harrison, who was now in jail maybe he'd make a good HG.
“BUZZ! BUZZ!” went the transmitter in his ear.
"____!" said Hazel, "I heard that from all the way across the room."
George held his ears and ____ trembling.
"Ow!" It was so loud that tears formed under his ____.
"You look ____," said Hazel. "Why don't you put your head down on the couch?
You ____ rest your handicap bag as well."
In George's handicap ____ were placed several lead balls.
These prevented him from running too fast. "____?"
"You've been so tired lately, honey," said ____.
"If only we could cut a few holes in the ____ and take out a few balls."
"I don't think about it ____. It's just a part of me.
And anyway, if I did it, then other people would do the ____ thing.
Pretty soon, we'd be back in the ____ ages again where everybody would be competing with everybody else.
____ you don't want to live in that kind of world."
“Do you really think that’s possible?”
"BUZZ! BUZZ!" went the buzzer in George's ____.
"Huh? What are you talking about?" "Never mind," said ____.
The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news ____.
It wasn't clear at first what the ____ was about.
The announcer, ____ all announcers, had a serious speech impediment.
"L-L-L-Ladies and ____."
The announcer ____ up, handing his sheet of paper to a ballerina.
He asked her if she could read it for ____.
She must have been extraordinarily beautiful since she wore a hideous ____.
"____ and gentlemen," said the ballerina, reading the bulletin.
It was easy to see that she was the strongest and ____ graceful of all the dancers.
She carried enormous handicap bags.
She had to ____ for her beautiful, warm, and musical voice.
She cleared her throat and continued, making her voice completely ____.
"Harrison Bergeron, age nineteen, ____ just escaped from jail.
He was jailed for trying to ____ over the government.
He is a genius and an athlete, is under-handicapped, and should be ____ as extremely dangerous."
A ____ photograph of Harrison Bergeron was flashed on the screen upside down, then sideways, upside down again, then right side up.
He was handsome and tall―200 centimeters ____, in fact.
In another picture, he was ____ wearing his handicaps.
He wore a huge pair of earphones that slowed down any thinking and ____, heavy glasses that made him nearly blind.
Pieces of metal hung all over ____, pressing him into his seat.
Metal dangled from his shirt pockets and across his ____.
On Harrison's ____ body, he carried no less than 180 kilograms.
To hide his good looks, Harrison was required to wear a big, red clown's ____, and his eyebrows were all shaved.
"If you see this boy, don't ____ him.
____ dangerous," said the ballerina unnaturally.
Then, suddenly,
Then, suddenly, a door was pulled from its frame and thrown to the dance ____.
George Bergeron looked closely at the boy who emerged ____ beyond the door, carrying his heavy metal and wearing his ridiculous clown's nose.
"My God! That's our Harrison!" "____! BUZZ!"
The cameras focused on ____.
He stood there―a giant amongst men at the center of the ____.
Ballerinas, engineers, and announcers trembled ____ him, expecting to die.
"I am the Emperor!" ____ Harrison.
"Do you ____? I am the Emperor!
Everybody must do what I ____ at once!
Even ____ I stand here handicapped and weakened, I am greater than any man who ever lived!
Now ____ me become even greater!"
Harrison tore ____ his chains with ease and dropped them on the floor.
He then smashed his earphones against the wall, threw away his clown's nose, and revealed a face that would have amazed ____, the god of thunder.
“Now,” he said. “Who will be my Empress?”
The people knelt before ____.
"Let the first woman to rise ____ me as my partner."
A ballerina slowly rose, swaying on her ____ like a gentle rose in the breeze.
"Why should you be made to carry these handicaps? Why should ____?" Harrison asked.
He pulled the buzzer from her ____, snapped off her heavy bags, and removed her mask.
She was blindingly beautiful. "Now," said ____, taking her hand.
"Shall we show the people the meaning of the ____ 'dance'? Music!" he commanded.
The music began ____ at first.
Harrison stripped the ____ of their handicaps and said, "Try it now."
Soon, the most beautiful music sounded ____ throughout the music hall.
Harrison took his Empress by the ____.
They danced ____ across the stage, and then in an explosion of joy, into the air they jumped!
They whirled, and Harrison ____ his Empress nearly to the ground.
There were tears in the eyes of all those watching.
____ never known that such beauty could be possible.
The dancers leapt up ____ the high ceiling.
When the music came to an end, they embraced passionately and cried tears of ____.
It was then that ____ Moon Glampers, the Handicapper General, entered the stage.
____ Moon Glampers said, "Listen up, everybody! I'll give you one minute to put your handicaps back on. Or you will all die."
Right at the ____, the Bergerons' television screen went black.
"Huh! That was weird," said ____. But George had gone into the kitchen to grab a beer.
George ____ his can of beer. "You've been crying. What's up with that?" he asked Hazel.
"Um, you know, I just can't ____. I think there was something sad on television."
"What?" "I don't ____." "Just forget such things. That's my girl," George said.
The buzzing in his ear was ____.
"It just feels so ____," said Hazel.
"Why do we have to feel things? ____ in this day and age do we need to feel sad things?"