It was the first day of summer, the day of the Search in the small village betwixt the plains to the south and the mountains to the north. Once every year, the government searched every person’s home, looking for books, or writing utensils, or parchment, or any other written materials that the citizens possessed. Everyone was tested to see if they were absolutely illiterate, for the government feared that if the people found new ways to learn and communicate with each other, they would be powerful enough to overthrow them. As a result, anyone who could read or write was killed.
There was one literate person left in the entire village, and that was a young girl named Ami. Her father, who had secretly taught her everything he knew, had been killed when he did not pass the test. This morning Ami had painstakingly scraped away the little marks she had scratched in the ground, burned all the papers she had written on, and buried the ancient books that had been passed down to her. She did this every year. And every year, during the tests, she had to pretend that she had never picked up a book before and was only seeing scribbles in the place of letters.
Suddenly a loud knock sounded on the door; two shorter taps followed. Ami and her mother knew exactly what the message meant. All the citizens were to gather at the village square; there they would be tested while the government officials inspected their houses.
“Hurry, Ami,” said Ami’s mother. “We must be there at exactly two hours after noon.”
“Mother,” Ami whispered as they left their house. “Why must we be questioned and searched? Why can we not read books and write and do things like that?”
“Because the government is afraid,” her mother replied quietly. “They do not want us to be smart enough or strong enough to challenge them. One day, there will be no one left in this village to preserve the art of literature.”
“That is unfair,” said Ami, “and that is wrong.”
“Hush now, Ami,” her mother said, glancing around. “The officers shall not hear us talking in such a rebellious way. You are the last one, my little daughter, the last.”
They were at the square. Two lines of sticks driven into the ground were tied together with twine to form a column, and the citizens crowded into the area. As Ami and her mother joined them, she stood on tiptoe to take a quick look at the main building they were going to enter. This was where all the government officials were; this was where they would be tested. She and her mother had done this procedure many, many times, and every time Ami remembered the same thing. She remembered not the officers or the test questions or the waiting crowds, but the one or two people who stood miserably at the roped-off section behind the testing terminals inside the building. They had not passed the test, and they would not live to see the next sunrise.

By the time Ami returned home, it was dark. Her mother lit a candle and she unburied the books she had hidden. The officers had opened drawers, tore up sheets, and ripped open curtains, but they had not found her books. After dusting off the cover, she opened a book and started reading by the illuminating candlelight. Again she felt disturbed by the unfairness of her world. Her father killed, she and her mother questioned like spies.
“Go to sleep, Ami,” her mother said sharply, “you wear your eyesight reading in the dark.”
“Yes, Mother,” Ami said, closing the book and climbing into her bed. She closed her eyes and slowly drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep. She forgot to blow out the candle.
Sometime during the night a loud banging sounded at the door. “Open up!” a gruff voice commanded. “Open the door!”
Ami’s mother hurried to the door, unlatching it and opening it wide. Five armed men stood outside.
“Who are you and what is your business?” she demanded.
“You are under arrest,” one of the men said. “We are sent by the government officials conducting the Search.”
“For what reason?”
The official merely motioned towards the heap of books on the ground by the candle. Ami gasped as he said, “Whose is this?”
There was a pause. Then Ami’s mother said quietly, “It was me. They are mine, mine alone.” Ami felt the tears well up in her eyes as the officials seized her mother and swept her outside. The door slammed shut.
Ami’s mother, her mother who could neither read nor write, had sacrificed herself for her daughter. For what seemed like an eternity, Ami stared at where her mother had stood just a moment before, tears flowing freely from her eyes, weeping shamelessly.
Yet with her sadness came great rage and hatred. Hatred for the government, for those officials, for herself for not having stopped them. She took the long wooden stick that was used to bar the door and threw the door open. She ran out into the night, in the direction the men had taken her mother. Waving the stick like a weapon, she blundered through undergrowth and stumbled into fallen branches like a wild creature. At last she was at the village square again, where they would have undoubtedly gone.
Ami didn’t think. She picked up her stick and running up the steps three at a time, crashed through the door of the building. She was in time to see her mother in the center of the room, surrounded by guards threatening her with arrows, as a knife was thrown. It whizzed through the air and pierced her mother’s chest, and she fell to the ground. Ami screamed. Raging fire blazed in her eyes. She leapt onto the officer who had killed her mother, grasping his neck with one hand and holding the stick high with the other. She hit him hard, again and again. Officers were moving in on her, but she did not notice. “You killed my mother! Killed her for no reason at all!” she shouted. When the man’s screams of agony fell silent, she turned on the others. The number against her was overwhelming, yet she kept hitting and striking, taking many as she took her revenge. But she could not hold out, there were just too many against her. A hit on her head sent her down; another at her side and she became unconscious. She could see nothing, she couldn’t think, all the sounds of fighting were drowned out.
An arrow at Ami’s neck finished her. Defiance flashed in her eyes once last time, they were once again bright with fire, and then they went dull. One day, there will be no one left in this village to preserve the art of literature. It had come true. The last one had gone.