In Robert Silverberg’s classic short story “Road to Nightfall,” Paul Katterson has just learned that today’s food dole will be his last. New York City is devastated, and escape from the city is impossible. A decades-long world war has reduced the city to rubble, and the United States has been partitioned into a dozen strips of land. Each area is isolated from the rest by radioactive wastelands. Boats patrol the waters surrounding Manhattan, killing all who attempt to flee the city. Yet Paul refuses to give up on humanity.
When a man tries to enlist him in his hunting parties, Paul rejects the offer, knowing what type of “meat” the man’s people actually hunt. But he and his girlfriend are hungry. She sees the employment offer as necessary: don’t they want to survive, to start a family? Paul wonders at her irresponsibility: how can she desire to bring children into this world? When she gives in to the only type of food available, he runs away from her. But what are his options? Everyone has given up: now there are only the hunters and the hunted.
We all have principles we care about, and goals we would like to achieve. We are moral beings, and fight for causes we believe in. What happens when those around us stop believing that the goals we desire are achievable, and become obstacles to the causes we feel so strongly about? No person is an island; we cannot define as “evil” that which all of society has redefined as “good.” Without support of any kind, we must bend to the public will, abandon everything we have fought for, and become what everyone else would have us be.
Or must we? Can you look yourself in the mirror every day for the rest of your life if you cave in on what you care about? Is life worth living if you abandon your principles and goals? Is a meaningless existence really better than living according to your beliefs, even if everyone else seems to have rejected them (and in the process, rejected you)?
Ironically, “Road to Nightfall” continued to be rejected by publishers long after Robert Silverberg became a published author. But he held onto the story, and two years later, mentioned to his friend Harlan Ellison that he still had one story he had failed to sell. Ellison read the story, loved it, and with his passionate support, “Road to Nightfall” was finally published, four years after he first began submitting it.
So where is your Harlan Ellison? Perhaps he is out there now, and you just have to wait for life to bring him your way. Please, for the sake of all you hold dear, hold on until someone comes along who will aid you in your fight. For the world needs people who refuse to abandon their principles and will never give up on transforming their goals into a better reality for all of us.
Robert Silverberg’s story “Road to Nightfall” is included in Phases of the Moon: Six Decades of Masterpieces by the SFWA Grand Master. The collection is available from the publisher ibooks, and can be found at www.ibooks.net.
When a man tries to enlist him in his hunting parties, Paul rejects the offer, knowing what type of “meat” the man’s people actually hunt. But he and his girlfriend are hungry. She sees the employment offer as necessary: don’t they want to survive, to start a family? Paul wonders at her irresponsibility: how can she desire to bring children into this world? When she gives in to the only type of food available, he runs away from her. But what are his options? Everyone has given up: now there are only the hunters and the hunted.
We all have principles we care about, and goals we would like to achieve. We are moral beings, and fight for causes we believe in. What happens when those around us stop believing that the goals we desire are achievable, and become obstacles to the causes we feel so strongly about? No person is an island; we cannot define as “evil” that which all of society has redefined as “good.” Without support of any kind, we must bend to the public will, abandon everything we have fought for, and become what everyone else would have us be.
Or must we? Can you look yourself in the mirror every day for the rest of your life if you cave in on what you care about? Is life worth living if you abandon your principles and goals? Is a meaningless existence really better than living according to your beliefs, even if everyone else seems to have rejected them (and in the process, rejected you)?
Ironically, “Road to Nightfall” continued to be rejected by publishers long after Robert Silverberg became a published author. But he held onto the story, and two years later, mentioned to his friend Harlan Ellison that he still had one story he had failed to sell. Ellison read the story, loved it, and with his passionate support, “Road to Nightfall” was finally published, four years after he first began submitting it.
So where is your Harlan Ellison? Perhaps he is out there now, and you just have to wait for life to bring him your way. Please, for the sake of all you hold dear, hold on until someone comes along who will aid you in your fight. For the world needs people who refuse to abandon their principles and will never give up on transforming their goals into a better reality for all of us.
Robert Silverberg’s story “Road to Nightfall” is included in Phases of the Moon: Six Decades of Masterpieces by the SFWA Grand Master. The collection is available from the publisher ibooks, and can be found at www.ibooks.net.
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