Diary entry of Jonas' point of view

Dear Diary,
yesterday I passed my Ceremony of Twelve, it was very strange. The Chief Elder said that I will be the next Receiver of the Memory. What is a Receiver of the Memory? I don’t know. I will tell you about my day, so you can see what happened.

It was the Ceremony of Twelve, my last and most important ceremony.  At first everything was normal, the Chief Elder made the initial speech, about the recollection of the time of childhood and the period of preparation, the coming responsibilities of adult life, the profound importance of assignment and the seriousness of the training to come.  She talked about the group and mentioned the hard work. Finally she started to call number one to stage.

I listened carefully when Asher was called to stage, who got the assignment of Assistant Director of Recreation. When he walked back to sit down, I already prepared to stand up and go to the stage, but the Chief Elder didn’t call my number. She skipped me! First I thought I heard it wrong, but I didn’t. She made a mistake. The entire community noticed it and was amazed, because the Chief Elder made no mistakes. NEVER! I couldn’t pay attention to Pierre’s assignment. I felt dizzy, I thought maybe I did something wrong, my group leader was worrying, but the Chief Elder continued.

Finally the last got his assignment.

Then she said that she knew that she skipped my number. She apologized to the community and to me and I had to go to stage. Then she said something weird: I’m not assigned. My heart sank, but I was selected? For what? She said I was selected to be the new Receiver of the Memory.  She added that the committee failed in their last selection, she was looking at a man, who I never noticed before, a bearded man with pale eyes. Further she said, sometimes the chosen assignment might not be the right one so they observe us during the training, but the Receiver-in-training can’t be observed. The Receiver is the most honored job in our community. 

Then she said that I have all the qualities that a Receiver must have: Intelligence, Integrity, Courage and Wisdom. The next thing she mentioned, was weird: The training involves physical pain? None of us here can comprehend it because it is beyond our experiences?  I don’t want to feel pain! 

But she continued. I have a one more quality: The Capacity to See Beyond. First I don’t know what she meant, but then I remembered the thing with the apple.
She left the stage and the community started to murmur my name.  Thereby I knew that they accept me as the new Receiver. My heart swelled with gratitude and pride. I was happy.

The final question is: “What will I become?” and “Which task has the Receiver?”

Jonas