It was a short story I read back in highschool and I wanted to revisit it yet can’t remember the name.
The gist of the story is that it’s set in a dystopian future where everybody is forced to be equal in every way. As in, people more capable at their jobs are forced to lower their effort to that of the average person, pretty people are forced to wear masks that make them look average, the strong have weights draped upon them to make their efforts equal to that of the average build, and people have these earbuds in their ears that scramble their thought patterns by playing disorienting sounds.
We’re introduced to a couple who had a kid that was taken away from them because he was too exceptional at everything, and unwilling to conform. They watch a ballerina performance on their tv and in the middle of it, their son, having escaped his confinements, breaks into the studio to encourage the world to express themselves freely before getting shot dead.
It’s been a while since I read this story, but I believe the boy’s name was also the name of the story, and that it may have been written by Ray Bradbury, but both could be wrong as I don’t remember the boy’s name and I was also reading Fahrenheit 451 at the time.