The Ones Who Stay and Fight - How Long 'Til Black Future Month?

"The Ones who Stay and Fight" is, per N. K. Jemisin's description, a response to and pastiche of Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," and boy is it. At one point it takes direct aim at Omelas, reading:

This is not Omelas, a tick of a city, fat and happy with its head buried in a tortured child.

No, Um-Helat is a utopic city like Omelas, and one that must still pay a price for its peace and prosperity. Unlike Omelas, however, the people of Um-Helat have chosen to support and honor difference; not to walk away, to allow the child to be tortured, but to stay, and fight, and ensure that the taint is destroyed whenever its head appears. It is a price that is paid, sometimes, in blood, but a price known. And unlike Omelas, we have more choice than merely to stay or leave, but to correct.

This is going to have me thinking for a while, but I did enjoy it.