Any game looks straight if everyone is being cheated at once

 I've had a rough 2022, so far. I imagine I'm not the only one. On January 21st, I went to bed, hoping to sleep. Sleep has been really hard to come by lately, so I wasn't surprised when I woke right up around 2am. What did surprise me was a clear voice in my head telling me that I need to re-read The Long Walk by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King). The Long Walk is one of my favorite King stories and I've read it a handful of times already. Why read it again?

You know how they say that it's not the book that has changed, it's the reader? That's why reading a favorite (or even not so favorite) book more than once across the span of your life is good. Is Stephen King great literature? Well...no. But what he can do amazingly well is show us the horror and terror of people. I feel his best works all include mere humans. Nothing supernatural, no monsters, clowns, or giant spiders. Just people. Because honestly, aren't we horrible enough to each other?

The Long Walk was first published in 1979 so technically, these shouldn't be spoilers. But, if you haven't read it yet, stop now, go read it, and then come back. Because I will be telling secrets here.

Still here?

Ok.

Every time I pick up this story, I'm shocked at it. I'm still trying to figure out why. Ray Garraty is a 16 year old who has signed up for The Long Walk. It's a walk with 100 teenage boys, where they walk across Maine, and possibly, into the neighboring state. It happens once a year and boys are picked for the walk based on physical and mental tests. At the end, the winner gets whatever he wants and his family is financially set. This reason is why a lot of family members don't try to convince their boys to not participate. We don't know when in time we are, but if you catch the little bits here and there, you know the future is dystopian. America is ruled by dictator and the military is in charge. People can disappear easily if they don't conform to the rules.

Ray ends up next to Pete McVries and they end up walking together and helping each other throughout the walk. The rules to the walk are simple: stay above 4mph, never stop, but if you do stop or slow down, you can get 3 warnings. You can walk off 1 warning every hour. After 3 warnings, you get a ticket, which is a bullet to the brain (if you're lucky). The first kid to get his ticket is just jarring, to the walkers and to the reader. It's real now. You are in the walk and you are never stopping until you die or are the last walker. 

Ray is our central character but he keeps himself surrounded with a group of boys who are a motley crew of stories and reasons why they are walking. Some have worked out to be fit enough to survive the walk, others are just walking with no prep. One boy brought 100 coins. Every time he hears a shot, he transfers one coin to the other pocket to keep track of the deaths. At some point, walkers just step over the corpses, walking in their blood and trailing it behind them. At some point, the horror of it all is just mundane. 

Wrapping my mind around why kids would volunteer to do this, knowing their chances are so slim, and why families are ok with them going off to their deaths, I just haven't been able to yet. Is it much different than sending your kid off to the military, to war? But there's no honor in the walk, is there? To some, there is. You get the back stories of Ray's group and some are just damn heartbreaking. You want them all to win but the walk only stops when one person is left. 

Each kid handles the walk in their own way. Towards the end, many choose to just sit down and wait to be killed. Suicide by military. Sometimes they try to take down the soldiers guarding them. That's when a bullet to the brain is a better way to go, when the soldiers decide to "play" and just shoot the kids in ways to make them die a slow, painful death. 

So why did my brain tell me to re-read this? I might have found some correlation to my work life (will I get the reward at the end or just die in front of my computer?). I might have found it as a metaphor for life. Why do we keep finding ways to destroy one another?

The Long Walk is just a fantastic story. Apparently there are talks about it being a movie but I don't think I would want that. There just isn't any filler here, it's all worth the ride. Or the walk.

"Then why are you doing it? Garraty asked him. "If you know that much, and if you're that sure, why are you doing it?"

"The same reason we're all doing it," Stebbins said. He smiled gently, almost lovingly. His lips were a little sun-parched; otherwise, his face was still unlined and seemingly invincible. "We want to die, that's why we're doing it. Why else, Garraty? Why else?”