Excerpt from "The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas":
With a clamor of bells that set the swallows soaring, the Festival of Summer came to the city Omelas, bright-towered by the sea. The rigging of the boats in harbor sparkled with flags. In the streets between houses with red roofs and painted walls, between old moss-grown gardens and under avenues of trees, past great parks and public buildings, processions moved. Some were decorous: old people in long stiff robes of mauve and grey, grave master workmen, quiet, merry women carrying their babies and chatting as they walked. In other streets the music beat faster, a shimmering of gong and tambourine, and people went dancing, the procession was a dance.
The city was full of music. In all the public buildings the doors stood open and inside even the paintings seemed brighter. The procession had already covered the north side and the west and was entering the Gates. All the bells of the towers were ringing. From the roofs of the tall buildings the banners were fluttering in the air. In the Squares, children played, running among the crowds with bright streamers.
But in a basement under one of the beautiful public buildings of Omelas, or perhaps in the cellar of one of its spacious private homes, there was a room. The room was about three paces long and two wide: a mere broom closet or disused tool room. In one corner of the little room was a couple of mops, with stiff, clotted, foul-smelling heads, standing near a rusty bucket. The floor was dirt, and a little excrement lay in one corner.