I don't know anyone who's actually walked away from Omelas. Tried myself, after I found out about the kid thing! Can't remember how I found out exactly—I think maybe I saw something on Facebook about it, and I got so steamed. Not steamed enough to try walking away, though, but then about six months later I got canned from my bookstore job after they'd found out I was stealing textbooks and playing tricks with the petty cash, and I got steamed about the Omelas Girl all over again. Decided to do something about it right then and there.
What? no, I've never seen her. Where is she supposed to be again? I've heard different things, like they put her in some secret catacombs under the Omelas Colosseum or stashed her in a hidden floor in the Omelas Central Library.
Anyway I tried walking out of Omelas two days after the bookstore fired me. There's only one highway leading out of town as you know so I figured, I'd stick to the road, and just started walking and wishing I'd stolen enough from the bookshop to get me a car. I dunno what I was hoping for exactly. I guess I thought maybe I'd hit a crossroad and then try to hitch a ride. Instead, after what seemed like hours of trudging alongside a totally empty road under a hot Sun, I reached the Last Chance Bar and Breakfast in Omelas Heights (population 17). I'd heard about the place but never seen it! There wasn't another customer in sight, but the bartender was friendly and I guess I must have put away too many whisky sours, because next thing I knew I was back in my apartment in the Omelas Arms with a miserable hangover. How I got back I don't know. I suppose the bartender must have taken pity on me and run me back to town, though I don't remember seeing a car.
Met some other folks who tried walking out of Omelas. Nobody ever made it, that I've ever heard. There's too much nothing around this burg. Most people give up after a while. One gal I talked to apparently stayed overnight in the Last Chance B&B and came racing back the next morning, swearing she'd never think of leaving a wonderful place like Omelas ever again. One fellow tried to drive away from Omelas—they found his smashed-up Plymouth on the edge of town, and not a sign of the driver, no footprints leading away, nothing.
I've thought of trying again but you know, doesn't every place in the world have its problems?
~Chara of Pnictogen
