\n<\/p>\n
When it came <\/span>into view, Doctor Rustin was struck by its size. The platform rose on six-by-six wooden posts at least 12 feet off the ground, with enough room up top for a small deck party, and the staircase from the sidewalk was a steeply pitched ladder. This gallows had been raised to last\u2014built not only by children but for them, since few adults would have the agility and daring to reach the top. Its height and solidity gave the sense of a play structure, the crossbar that loomed above the platform a climbing feature for the truly fearless, and the rope noose perfect for swinging and letting fly if only the gallows had been built over water.<\/p>\n Check out more from this issue and find your next story to read.<\/p>\n View More<\/p>\n A drop by the neck from 12 feet into midair would not be play. The designers of the Suicide Spot had been impressively serious. Rustin ran his hand over his own neck and forgot his mission.<\/p>\n About 30 people were gathered around the base, spilling from the sidewalk into the street. Most were teenagers skipping school, though there was a scattering of grown-ups and a couple of families with younger children. High up on the platform, two girls in yellowish-gray clothes stood on either side of a boy. He looked a year or two older than Rustin\u2019s daughter, Selva, with a wild thicket of hair and a tough face. He was tugging at the rope as if to test its strength, eyes narrowed, lower lip jutting out in a kind of defiance, while the two girls leaned close and spoke to him in voices so quiet that Rustin, keeping back and half concealed under the red awning of a tavern called the Sodden Spot, couldn\u2019t make them out.<\/p>\n But he knew they were Guardians\u2014specially trained peers, there to help confused young people break free from life as they\u2019d known it before the Emergency, in particular from their parents, and become unconflicted agents of Together. Mere weeks after the empire had collapsed, that word appeared on posters glued to the walls of public buildings and on banners strung from lampposts along the central avenues. What Together meant as a philosophy or program, Rustin wasn\u2019t sure, but as a passion, it had quickly spread among the city\u2019s Burghers, especially its youth, and created hairline fractures in his family. The Rustins were no longer the tight foursome that played word games at dinner. Selva no longer returned on the tram after school, but instead disappeared into the city, attending the daily gathering in the main square called We Are One, staying out for hours. This morning, Rustin\u2014marooned at home since being exiled from the hospital in disgrace\u2014had followed her through the streets until he lost her in the Market District.<\/p>\n In front of him a bickering couple, huddled under an umbrella\u2014though it wasn\u2019t raining\u2014made it even harder to hear what was happening on the gallows.<\/p>\n \u201cYou didn\u2019t have to come,\u201d the woman said. \u201cI could have come by myself.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou were afraid to. \u2018What if one of them really does it?\u2019\u200a\u201d the man said, mimicking her panic.<\/p>\n \u201cI never said that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShh!\u201d Rustin hissed. The Suicide Spot belonged to the young, and he didn\u2019t want to be associated with the disrespect of the middle-aged.<\/p>\n The boy\u2019s shoulders rose and fell. He looked down to check the position of his feet over the trapdoor, then draped the noose around his neck. A murmur that sounded almost like satisfaction passed through the audience.<\/p>\n A Guardian placed her hand on the lever connected to the trapdoor. In a voice clear enough to carry over the crowd, she asked: \u201cDo you want to leave this world?\u201d<\/p>\n Rustin saw the boy\u2019s face tighten. His eyes twitched in rapid blinks, his lips disappeared as if cold fury were coursing through his body. Then his features crumpled and he exploded in tears. He sobbed openly, without shame, like a little child, his whole body shaking. Several times he tried to master himself, but he couldn\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n Keeping a hand on the lever, the Guardian reached with her other and touched the boy\u2019s heaving shoulder. \u201cHey\u2014we\u2019re here with you. We\u2019re suffering with you. We love you.\u201d<\/p>\n The boy buried his face in his hands, and the thick nest of hair shook as if in a wind, and the sobs, though muffled, grew louder. Sighs of pity rose around the gallows.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you want to say to your parents?\u201d the other Guardian asked.<\/p>\n The boy looked up mid-sob, startled. \u201cMy\u2014I\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf they were here, what would you say to them?\u201d<\/p>\n He opened his mouth but no words came out, only a stuttering sob.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is pointless,\u201d the woman under the umbrella said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou were the one that wanted to come,\u201d the man said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you both leave?\u201d Rustin asked. They turned around to glare, but their talking stopped.<\/p>\n \u201cMama!\u201d the boy suddenly cried out. \u201cI\u2019m sorry!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYou have nothing to apologize for,\u201d said the first Guardian, her hand still gripping the lever.<\/p>\n \u201cDo it!\u201d the boy wailed.<\/p>\n The Guardian didn\u2019t move.<\/p>\n \u201cTalk to us,\u201d the other Guardian said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to lose you.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShut up and do it!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTalk to your parents. Why are you sorry? They should be sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMama will be when I do it!\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardian on the lever, who seemed to be leading the session, nodded.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, Mama will be sorry. But what about us? You\u2019re gone, and we needed you. Do you know what\u2019s on the other side of that door?\u201d<\/p>\n The boy looked down at his feet. He shook his head.<\/p>\n \u201cA great big empty hole. When you went through that door, the hole got bigger than you can imagine. That hole is bigger than this city.\u201d<\/p>\n The crowd drew in its breath as if the boy was already dangling broken-necked from the noose.<\/p>\n Rustin tried to imagine this girl and boy talking in someone\u2019s bedroom, which was where teenagers used to have difficult conversations. Talking face-to-face in private was supposed to allow you to open up, but maybe it wasn\u2019t true. Maybe it was easier to say everything like this, with a crowd at your feet and a rope around your neck.<\/p>\n \u201cPlease just do it,\u201d the boy said in a voice strained from sobbing, but softer, losing conviction.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd we were about to try something that has never happened before,\u201d the Guardian went on. \u201cWe were going to make a new city! Make ourselves new, too! We were young and dumb enough to think we could do it. How can we now without you?\u201d<\/p>\n The boy murmured something Rustin couldn\u2019t hear.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd what about your Better Human? All that work you did. What\u2019s going to happen to him now that you\u2019re gone?\u201d<\/p>\n The woman under the umbrella tugged at the man\u2019s coat sleeve. \u201cWhat did she say? Better what?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow the hell should I know?\u201d<\/p>\n Rustin didn\u2019t understand either.<\/p>\n The Guardian went on talking while the boy listened. He began to nod, and after a few more minutes he lifted the noose off his neck. She let go of the lever, and the crowd broke out in cheers and applause, as if its team had scored a winning goal. Startled, the boy looked down at his new fans. No adolescent defiance or child\u2019s anguish was visible on his face now. Wide-eyed, grinning, he climbed down the ladder like a boy who never in his life had expected to win first prize.<\/p>\n The ground was undulating under Rustin\u2019s feet, the tavern awning about to collapse on his head, the gallows the only fixed thing in sight. He had seen enough.<\/p>\n As he turned to go, a girl began to mount the scaffold. She wore the same clothes as the Guardians, with a bag slung over her shoulder and goggles dangling from her neck.<\/p>\n Found you! was his first thought, and then: She\u2019s going to replace a Guardian. That\u2019s how it works\u2014short shifts. He watched his daughter come out onto the platform. She took her place between the two girls and planted her feet apart. Then, with the same decisiveness he\u2019d seen from the moment she left the house, Selva reached for the noose and draped it over her head.<\/p>\n His stomach dropped as the trapdoor opened beneath him, plunging him into a void of air. No! He must have said it aloud, because the couple under the umbrella turned around: \u201cShh!\u201d His neck was tingling, his knees barely held him upright.<\/p>\n \ufeff\u201cDo you want to leave this world?\u201d the Guardian asked.<\/p>\n No! This time a silent cry. He would run to catch her legs before the rope went taut, but she would be just out of reach, her head listing forward in the choke hold of the noose.<\/p>\n \u201cPossibly,\u201d Selva said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat do you want to say to your\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cListen, Papa,\u201d Selva said before the Guardian could finish. \u201cThe other night you asked why I\u2019m angry.\u201d<\/p>\n She was speaking in her debate voice\u2014quick, strong, a little tremulous with effort. He knew that she had carefully prepared what she was going to say, and from his hiding place under the awning, he was listening. He had never listened so closely to anyone.<\/p>\n \u201cAs usual, I didn\u2019t think of an answer fast enough. Well, here\u2019s my answer, Papa: because you never believed the world could be better or worse than the one you gave me. And that breaks my heart.\u201d<\/p>\n A rumble of approval from the crowd.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, this one\u2019s good,\u201d the woman under the umbrella said to the man.<\/p>\n That\u2019s my girl up there, Rustin wanted to tell her. Our pride and joy. It had been a favorite phrase of his, until Pan came along and Annabelle asked him to stop using it, but sometimes he couldn\u2019t help himself, because even Selva with the noose around her neck was exactly that. Those eyes! Their intelligence shone all the way from the gallows. And didn\u2019t she have a point? Even here at the Suicide Spot he couldn\u2019t imagine any life for his daughter other than the one that had always awaited her under the empire.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world was worse than you ever knew, Papa. Remember the exams?\u201d<\/p>\n He would never forget them. Every year in May the whole empire came to a stop for three days while 14-year-old Burgher kids sat for their comprehensive exams. In the city by the river the authorities raised banners across buildings and lampposts to proclaim pride in their children and wish them luck. The rituals were ancient, unchanged since Rustin had sat for his. The night before, Annabelle had made the traditional meal of baked rabbit, asparagus, and custard. Rustin drilled Selva one last time on complex equations and imperial history. Pan touched his sister\u2019s forehead with a sprig of rosemary, and the family held hands around the table and solemnly recited the Prayer for Wisdom and Success: \u201cIf it cannot be me, then let it not be me. But let it be me.\u201d<\/p>\n The next morning, Burgher parents\u2014oblivious to the fighting that had broken out in the capital\u2014had lined the walkways and cheered as their children filed into schools with pencils and notebooks and tense faces, some bravely managing a smile, others rigid with fear. A few of Rustin\u2019s colleagues were on hand in their professional capacity in case a child fainted. As Selva walked past her parents, she kept her eyes fixed straight ahead. \u201cLook at her,\u201d Rustin whispered to Annabelle. \u201cShe\u2019s going to murder it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI had to place in the top 5 percent,\u201d Selva went on from the gallows. \u201cNot just to qualify for provincials and have a shot at the Imperial Medical College. But for you to still love me.\u201d<\/p>\n Someone in the crowd loudly booed.<\/p>\n Selva, no! Not true! <\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t look at you, because I was afraid I\u2019d see it in your eyes. Being your daughter, I did what I had to.\u201d<\/p>\n Illustration by Lauren Peters-Collaer. Sources: Vladimir Godnik \/ Getty; Wirestock \/ Getty.<\/p>\n As always, the results had been announced in the main square two days after the last exam, with practically the entire city in attendance. It was a gorgeous spring day, dry and fragrant, lilac and chestnut trees coming into bloom. One of the old councilors mounted a temporary stage erected in the middle of the square, next to the statue of a historic Burgher that stood on a pedestal surrounded by a gushing granite fountain, and for an hour he read from a long scroll of paper, while the children who had taken the exams lined up at the foot of the stage facing out toward the crowd. When they heard their name called, they stepped forward and shouted, \u201cHere for city and empire!\u201d<\/p>\n The names were read out in order from first rank to last. The family of Selva Rustin did not have long to wait. Out of 179 children, she was third.<\/p>\n \u201cYou beat your papa and your grandpa,\u201d Rustin had said that night over the most expensive bottle of wine he owned. \u201cWhat a day for the Rustins.\u201d On their coat of arms, in the quadrant with the caduceus, next to his own initials he carved SR<\/span>, welcoming his daughter into the family guild. She was set for life. And as he stood now in the shadow of the gallows, he thought: We sat around the kitchen table and sang our favorite songs. You pretended Zeus was your patient. Was that world so bad?<\/p>\n \u201cThe next day, the boy who sat beside me in class wasn\u2019t there,\u201d Selva continued. \u201cWe all knew why. He was down around 170.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone in the square had been keeping a rough count as the councilor approached the bottom of the list. Burghers with no family interest in the results were there just to see who had fallen into the bottom 10 percent\u2014that was a bigger draw than honoring the top 5 percent, who would sit the following month for the provincial round. Even if you lost track of the count, the cutoff point became clear as soon as the shouts of \u201cHere for city and empire!\u201d started to come out weak and choked. A few children didn\u2019t even answer when their names were called.<\/p>\n \u201cIver was an Excess Burgher.\u201d<\/p>\n Everyone knew what future lay in store for the bottom 10 percent. They, too, were set for life. No prohibition had been announced, but they would never be allowed to join a guild. They would finish the school year and then look for work. The lucky ones would find a job in one of the markets, or learn a trade in the Warehouse District, or, with the right family connections, go to work for the city as a street sweeper or trash collector. Some of the girls were hired as servants in the homes of higher-status Burghers, though Rustin refused on principle to consider it. A few sank into the underworld of prostitution.<\/p>\n But the great majority of Excess Burghers would end up like the ones who drank and fought all night at the Sodden Spot, lay around the main square asleep at midday, and spent most of their foreshortened adulthood in the city prison. Rustin\u2019s next-door neighbor thought they should be sent directly from school to compulsory work gangs. Some disappeared from the city and were swallowed up in the Yeoman hinterland. Most Burghers considered it more respectable, more in the natural order of things, to be a Yeoman than an Excess Burgher.<\/p>\n When Rustin was a boy, there had been no such people as Excess Burghers. Every child in the city was admitted into a guild\u2014of course, some at lower status than others. But around the time he was studying at the Imperial Medical College, he\u2019d heard that children who had not done well on their exams were leaving school and falling out of view. No ordinance was passed that declared the bottom 5 percent of Burgher children (later raised to 10) superfluous, but this was the beginning of a long period of economic contraction throughout the empire, and competition for a dwindling supply of guild positions became intense. That was when the practice began of parents withholding food from children who performed badly on their pre-exams as an incentive to study harder. (Rustin personally thought this was taking things too far, though he kept the opinion to himself.) The first accounts of cheating and payoffs during exam week surfaced\u2014a blow to the belief in fairness on which the whole system of guilds depended. Excess Burghers became a fixture of imperial life, the answer to a chronic social problem, the unfortunate result of simple arithmetic.<\/p>\n \u201cDo you remember what you said that night?\u201d The tremble in Selva\u2019s voice was thickening; she was coming to her purpose. \u201cI told you about Iver, and you said\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s just the way it has to be, Sel. She had come home from school troubled, and he\u2019d wanted to comfort her. He hadn\u2019t wanted poor Iver\u2019s fate to take away from her magnificent achievement. She hadn\u2019t replied, but a cloud had passed over her face.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just\u2014the way\u2014it has\u2014to be.\u201d Selva raised her chin, causing the length of rope above the noose to go slightly slack. She closed her eyes and shook her head and stamped her foot on the platform just as if she\u2019d reached the end of endurance during one of their arguments that had escalated far beyond his wishes. When she opened her eyes, they pierced his chest. \u201cWhy?\u201d she cried. \u201cWhy was that just the way it had to be? Why in the world did you ever think that was just the way it had to be?\u201d<\/p>\n More approval from her audience, shouts of \u201cWhy? Why?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s what you should have said, Papa: \u2018I\u2019m sorry, sweetheart, but our whole life is a stinking pile of shit, that\u2019s how it is, we live on it, we eat it, we fuck on it, we\u2019ll be buried in it, but I love you so let\u2019s not talk about it anymore.\u2019\u200a\u201d<\/p>\n The shouting grew wild. Even the two Guardians were shouting\u2014they had become part of Selva\u2019s audience. Her color rose and her throat quivered inside the noose and her lips tightened in expectation of a response that he wasn\u2019t there to give. He felt as if he were letting her down by not standing beside her on the platform to receive the full force of her indignation, to coax out the last glimmer of her brilliance. One word of his and she\u2019d finish him off, cut him to pieces. He was witnessing one of the greatest moments of her life, as great as that morning in the main square. That\u2019s my girl, he thought again\u2014but also: It wasn\u2019t just me! Everyone believed it. In the old days beggars were drawn and quartered in that square. It sounds terrible now, but four months ago Excess Burghers were normal. You\u2019d be surprised what people can get used to.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019d said that, it would have helped me. But you didn\u2019t have the courage.\u201d Selva dropped her chin and lowered her voice. \u201cSo I kept going. I started cramming for provincials. My dream was to reach the imperial round. Instead, we had an Emergency.\u201d<\/p>\n A cheer rose, half-heartedly\u2014they weren\u2019t sure where she was headed.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the end of exams. To be honest, it felt like the end of me. I actually, literally, didn\u2019t know who I was. Without the next round, why get up in the morning?\u201d She gave a hollow laugh. \u201cThen Together came, with the six principles. Suddenly people seemed happier, they started talking louder and laughing, even with strangers. The rules of Good Development came from the empire, from on high, but Together was our own creation. I thought: Okay, I\u2019ll do that. I\u2019ll join a self-org committee\u2014even Iver\u2019s in one. I\u2019ll be the best damn Together girl in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n Someone laughed too loud. Rustin knew from the tremolo in Selva\u2019s voice that things were going wrong.<\/p>\n \u201cExcept Together wasn\u2019t about that\u2014it was the opposite of that. \u2018I am no better and neither are you\u2019\u2014that\u2019s the second principle!\u201d Selva brought her hands to her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut as if a massive headache had just come on. \u201cSo here I am. I don\u2019t have the right thoughts, I keep thinking things I don\u2019t want to think, they go around and around and I can\u2019t make them stop. I can\u2019t stop being your girl!\u201d<\/p>\n The woman punched the air with her umbrella. \u201cOh my God, she\u2019s great!\u201d<\/p>\n The Guardians spoke to Selva as they\u2019d spoken to the boy, telling her what it would mean to leave the world, reminding her to think of her Better Human, but none of it worked, her silence was too strong for them. She stood there in the grip of unuttered answers that would have defeated their philosophy, and her father knew that she was struggling with the decision. But before she reached it, the Guardian released the lever and the second Guardian embraced Selva. She removed the noose from her own neck and descended the ladder into a swarm of cheers with failure in her eyes.<\/p>\n * Lead illustration sources: Mads Perch \/ Getty; Westend61 \/ Getty; MirageC \/ Getty.<\/em><\/p>\n This excerpt was adapted from George Packer\u2019s novel<\/em> The Emergency. It appears in the December 2025 print edition. <\/p>\n \u200bWhen you buy a book using a link on this page, we receive a commission. Thank you for supporting The Atlantic.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When it came into view, Doctor Rustin was struck by its size. The platform rose on six-by-six wooden posts at least 12 feet off the ground, with enough room up top for a small deck party, and the staircase from the sidewalk was a steeply pitched ladder. This gallows had been raised to last\u2014built not<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[1072,6469],"class_list":{"0":"post-32396","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-george","9":"tag-packer"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Explore the December 2025 Issue<\/h2>\n