Ethan Nappen's Essay

Equality 7-2521
1200 West Park Avenue
Ocean, New Jersey 07712

Dear Ms. Ayn Rand,

We are reading your book, Anthem, after discovering it in the great tunnel below the ground. It somehow must have escaped the great book burnings of the unmentionable times. Although we commit a sin by reading your book and by writing this letter, we find it fascinating as it espouses concepts never before encountered by us in the Home of the Students. After completing our experiments with the copper wire and the glass box, we will resume writing this letter on paper made thousands of years ago. Tomorrow, we intend to show the glass box to the World Counsel of Scholars and give it to mankind as our gift.

We are hiding in the great tunnel below the ground. We long for the Golden One, but we are afraid that all is lost because the World Counsel of Scholars has proclaimed that Equality 7-2521 has broken all laws and that we shall be burned at the stake for thinking that our mind held greater wisdom than the collective mind of the World Counsel of Scholars. We must flee into the uncharted forest where death surely awaits us. We expect to be devoured by vicious animals, but our only regret is that we will never again see the Golden One. We probably will not be able to finish this letter or finish reading your book, but we are bringing them with us on our perilous flight into the uncharted forest. The book and the letter provides us with a peculiar comfort.

We are the happiest we have ever been because the Golden One and we are together. We are gathering our own food. We are getting further away from the City and from the air that touches upon it. Ahead of our trail we have spotted a white flame among the trees. We do not know what it is, but we will climb up to see it. We must stop writing for now as the climb awaits us.

I have finished reading your book, and I have read many other books as well. I have learned much, but there still is much to learn. I understand the meaning of the sacred word. I will never live my life for another. I now have a new name for myself, and I am Ethan Nappen.

I Remain,
Ethan Nappen