First Draft: Chapter 28

The next event which I feel is important to relate happened about two weeks after Joshua’s visit to the campus. I was sitting in my room, trying to get a little bit of homework done, when David and Icarus burst through the door.
Their sudden entrance startled me, and I jumped up, slightly startled. My pen went flying from my hand and landed on the ground somewhere. I got up, slightly annoyed at their sudden entrance, and looked around the floor for my lost pen. "Damn it," I said irritably, "can’t you jackasses give me a little warning before you come running in here like that?"
I found my pen lying by the bed, and bent down to get it. When I looked up, I noticed the faces of David and Icarus for the first time. Both of their faces were flushed red. Their hair was matted down with sweat, and pasted to their foreheads. Both of them were breathing hard, and David’s hands were shaking. Yet on their faces were expressions of pure joy. "Where happened to you guys?" I asked.
"Jon you should have been there," David said excitedly, grabbing me by the shoulders.
"What happened?" I said.
"We can’t talk about it here," Icarus insisted.
David disagreed. "Sure we can, but we’ll need to close the window first." As Icarus went over to close my window, David went over and made sure my door was shut and locked. Then he came over to me. "Jon, it was great," he said in a hushed, but excited, tone. "We got chased by the Strates."
"It was magnificent," Icarus chimed in. "I thought they were going to catch you Dave."
David laughed. "I thought they were going to catch me too."
"What happened?" I asked for the third time, this time my voice more excited.
"Shh!" David made a half-hearted attempt to quiet me, but he was obviously more excited about his story then he was intent on keeping me quiet. "Icarus and I were passing out pamphlets about the war," he said. "We were down by Terra Street. Are you familiar with that area at all?" I shook my head no. "It’s kind of in the outskirts of down town. A real poor area. They don’t even bother to keep the street lights maintained down there, so for the most part Icarus and I were wandering around in the dark. We were hanging leaflets on the doors of houses, and sticking them on street corners, anywhere we could."
"They were really good leaflets too," Icarus chimed in. "Clodius designed them himself."
"Yeah, too bad we don’t have any to show you here Jon. We dropped them all when we started to run."
"It’s okay," I said. I wasn’t really all that interested in seeing the fliers anyway. "Go on with your story."
"Okay, anyway," David continued, "there aren’t too many people out wandering the streets, because it’s so dark out, right? Occasionally we come across someone homeless guy sleeping in the corner, and so we slip a flier under his arm, or some poor drunk is swaying through the streets, trying to find his home, and we give him a flier too."
"I can’t imagine the drunks are too interested in Clodius’ politics," I said.
"Man, always negative aren’t you Jonny," Icarus teased.
"Well maybe they’ll read it when they get sober," David said. "Anyway, as we’re passing this stuff out, I guess we must have given one to a Strate somewhere along the line."
"It was so dark out we couldn’t see his uniform," Icarus explained.
"I guess we should have been more careful, but Icarus is right. It was dark out. The Strate takes the flier from us, but he can’t read it in the dark of course, so he has to hang on to it until he finds a house that has enough light coming from the window. Then he looks at the thing, sees what it says, and just goes nuts."
"Hey! You kids! Stop!" Icarus did his imitation of the Strate’s voice.
"Yeah, just like that actually. He just blurts it out like that. If he was a little bit smarter, he would have waited until he caught up with us again and then tried to arrest us, but he was probably so angry he just yelled without thinking. And then, after we hear him yell, we can here his footsteps running down the street towards us."
"You should have been there Jon," Icarus said excitedly.
"It was the last thing we expected," David admitted. "What is a Strate doing wandering around Terra Street at night? By himself? I was so surprised I didn’t even realize what was happening until Icarus took off running."
Icarus looked slightly guilty. "Um, yeah sorry about that Dave. I didn’t mean to leave you there. I just panicked I guess."
"Don’t worry about it," David answered. "If I was stupid enough to stand around, I deserved to be left behind. But you know how Icarus is when he runs, right Jon? Like he’s got wings attached to him or something."
"Unless I’m running up stairs," Icarus inserted, with a wink to me.
"So Icarus just disappears into the night, but by the time I realize what’s happening, the Strate’s almost on top of me. When I do take off running, he’s right on my heels. I’m thinking it’s so dark, maybe I can loose him, so I keep turning into every side street I can find, but I can still here his footsteps right behind mine. Jon, it was such a rush. It was the most exciting moment of my life." I knew exactly what he meant. For a second I was fourteen again, and I was darting in and out of alleys with a Strate right on my tail. "I really thought he had me Jon. He was in much better shape then I was, and my legs just wouldn’t move as fast as I wanted them too. Then somehow, I ended up at the Mare River." Mare was the main river that cut through downtown. In the old days, all of Urbae was just a small fishing community that had centered around this river. "I’m not even sure exactly how I got to the river. I had no idea where I was going. I was just running down whatever street looked good to me, but somehow I got to the river. It wasn’t the main part of the river though, it was the part that goes through all the poorer neighborhoods, so it wasn’t well lit at all. I was running across the bridge, which is so old and rickety by the way that in normal circumstances I wouldn’t even have set foot on it, and I just decide to jump off. I land in the water with a splash, but once I get to the surface I just tread water quietly so the Strate has no idea where I am. He knows he’ll never catch me in the river after dark, so after standing around on the bridge for a while trying to see me, I begin to hear him walk angrily away."
"The water must have been pretty cold this time of year," I observed.
"Trust me Jon, that was the last thing on my mind. After I’m sure he’s gone, I swim to the shore and make my way back to my bike. I was so nervous though. I thought he was going to jump out at me any minute."
"Quite a story," I admitted.
"Jonny you really should have been there," David exclaimed. "You would have loved it."
"It would have been just like old times," Icarus commented. "Remember when the three of us got chased by Strates inside the park?"
"Yeah, remember that Jon?" David excitedly echoed. "If you had been there tonight, it would have been like an adventure reunion."
David’s story had excited me. My heart was beating faster, and I think my breathing had increased. I was even beginning to feel a little bit warmer. Was I living vicariously through David’s tale of adventure? Had his tale invoked in me old memories?
I closed my eyes briefly. Very briefly, it was almost like a slow blink. But, in that instant when my eyes were closed, I was suddenly transported back in time to when I was fourteen, and now I was the one who was running for all he was worth, with a Strate in hot pursuit. I was the one weaving in and out of streets with the Strate gaining on me from behind.
I opened my eyes. Icarus and David were both looking at me, waiting to see how I would respond to their story. I could feel myself get even hotter, and I realized why David’s story had excited me so much. I was getting angry.
It was an irrational anger. I knew that. I knew there was absolutely no reason why I should be angry. But that knowledge didn’t help me at all. My emotional side was still getting angry, despite the best efforts of my rational side.
That was my story David was telling. It had happened to me before it had happened to any of them. And here they were, thinking they were so great because they had outrun a Strate at twenty-one, and no one even thought of me, and how I had done the same thing at fourteen. They were so wrapped up in this revolution of theirs that all they could think about now was revolutionary deeds and propaganda, but I had been running away from the Strates before any of this revolution stuff.
Such a silly, selfish reason to be angry. And I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. I was angry in spite of myself.
"I wish I was there," I replied, concentrating hard to make sure I projected nothing but a pleasant, friendly face towards those two.
"I wish you had been there too Jon," David responded. Maybe it was just my imagination, but there seemed to be something in David’s tone of voice. It was as if he was trying to make me feel bad for missing the adventure.
"You can go next time," Icarus said. Icarus’ tone, unlike David’s, seemed genuine to me at the time. Maybe it was the genuineness of it that enticed me, for I immediately began imagining myself accepting it, and then running out to join them on this crazy adventure and pass out leaflets in dark alley ways, running from police, and drinking down the sweet night air was I ran, and living in excitement. Every night would be a new adventure. We would start out each night with the thrilling uncertainty of never knowing how things were going to play out. Who would win this night? Would we outrun the Strates again, or would they finally catch us. Anything was possible.
And then my mind followed to this thought to the logical conclusion. What happens when we get caught? And we would get caught eventually. After all, sooner or later our luck was bound to run out, no matter how many close calls we survived along the way. No one was perfect; we had to loose eventually. I remembered how terrified I had been at the prospect of being caught stealing a hat, but that was nothing more then a juvenile prank. This was sedition. This was treason. This was a highly illegal act being carried out by adults with full knowledge of the consequences of their actions. The best we could hope for was just to be exiled like Clodius. The worst was—well the worst could be life imprisonment or maybe even death. It all depended on the mood Flash was in when he sentenced us. This was no game. This was a few minutes of excitement and a lifetime spent paying for it.
"You know, you guys are really fucking stupid. Do you realize that?" I just blurted it out. That irrational anger, which I thought I had under control, manifested itself unexpectedly here, and escaped my mouth before the rationale side of me had time to stop it.
They were both taken aback briefly by my remark, and then retaliated with barbs of their own. It appears they also had anger towards me that they had been hiding until I opened up my mouth and made everything fair game. "What’s wrong with you Jon?" David asked.
"I’ll tell you what’s wrong, David. I’m tired of sitting here and listen to you guys talk about your revolution like it’s something you can pull off in between classes. You realize what would have happened to you if you had gotten caught tonight?"
David straightened himself proudly. "I’m willing to make sacrifices Jon." His tone of voice was so condescending. It annoyed me horribly.
"You haven’t even thought about it," I said. I obviously had no idea what really went on in David’s head, but from the attitude of unbridled enthusiasm he had for this whole thing, it was probably safe to say he hadn’t seriously contemplated the consequences. He knew what they were, but that’s different. He never really thought about them.
"I don’t get you at all Jon," David shot back. "You’ve never been worried about the Strates before. You steal their hats, you throw apple cores at their head, and you sneak into their park. You quit FJC for no apparent reason and then fight off the other cadets. You’re not afraid of conflict Jon, you seek it out. But when you see Icarus and I taking risks for a cause we believe in, that’s just foreign to you isn’t it Jon? Then you’re full of excuses."
I floundered briefly, surprised by the fierceness of this attack. My mouth was moving, but no sounds were emerging forth. I looked at David, whose face had become bright red and who was once again breathing heavily with excitement. I turned to look at Icarus, who looked almost bored by the discussion, and perhaps was trying to separate himself from it by retreating into the corner. At last I caught my words. "You think passing out anti-war pamphlets in the slums is going to change anything? Those people couldn’t care less about your politics. I bet most of them can’t even read. You’re just supplying them with free toilet paper."
"At least we’re trying Jon." Again, his voice, his expression, everything about him was so self-righteous. I couldn’t stand it. "I don’t see you doing anything."
"Yeah? Well maybe things aren’t going to be solved the way you think they will be. Or maybe you guys are chasing all the wrong problems."
David eyed me carefully, as if sizing me up. "I think I know what your problem is Jon," he said slowly and deliberately. "You’ve been brought up in wealth and privilege all your life, and you have no idea of the problems of inequality facing Fabulae."
There it was. The same argument I’ve heard all my life. That same damn argument. It was everyone’s favorite trump card against me. Whenever they got frustrated they could always say something like, "well you don’t understand Jon. You’re rich." It was as if that one fact overturned all my arguments. It was as if I had to spend my whole life apologizing for being born into a wealthy family. "That’s ridiculous. Rosa’s family is richer than mine."
"Well at least Rosa is trying to help."
"You’re not helping anything." I was yelling now, but that was partly David’s fault for making me so frustrated. "You’re just passing out leaflets."
Icarus distracted us by heading towards the door. "I’m going to get something to drink," he said. I thought at first that we had upset Icarus with our argument, but on his face there was only a look of boredom.
At any rate, Icarus’ departure provided a nice break in our conversation. "I’d better get going too," David said. His voice still had a bit of an edge to it, as if to communicate he was still upset with me.
"I have some homework I should be doing," I said, motioning to my desk. David left, shutting my door firmly behind him. I made my way back towards my desk.


Later that night I received another visitor. I was in the middle of an essay I had to do for class the next day, when a timid knock sounded from my door. "Come in," I said, setting my pen down and turning my attention to the door.
The door slowly opened, and Clio entered the room. "Oh, it’s only you," I said, picking up my pen again and returning to my writing. "How are you doing."
"Um, fine I guess." She spoke in a halting tone, as if things really weren’t fine at all. I set my pen down for the second time.
"What? What’s wrong?"
"Nothing." Again, the tone of her voice contradicted what she was saying. The word was uttered in a frustrated manner. There was a sulking expression on her face. Her bottom lip was slightly turned up and her eyes were making angry looks.
I let out a sigh. It was a deliberately loud sigh so that Clio would hear it. I hated these little games. "Look, just tell me what’s wrong, okay?"
"Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that—" she stopped, and swung her hands around, as if it was a tremendous effort for her to speak, and she was just going to drop the thought in mid sentence. Then, she started up again, slightly more confident about what she wanted to say. "It’s just that you said you were going to come see me tonight."
"I said that?"
"Yes, we were supposed to talk tonight."
"Talk about what?"
"I don’t know. Stuff. I have things I want to talk about."
"I don’t remember saying that."
"You did," she insisted. "You said it last week. You said we were going to have the talk tonight. I’ve been planning on it and everything."
She seemed so sure of herself, that I decided in all probability she was right and I had just forgotten. It would not be the first time I had done something like this. "Well, I’m sorry," I responded.
"It’s okay." We looked at each other in silence afterwards. She broke the silence briefly to repeat herself. "It’s okay." I picked up my pen, and returned to the essay, making a couple notes to myself on a separate piece of paper. She watched me for a minute or so, then spoke up. "So, did you still want to talk?" Again, she was speaking very hesitantly, as if she didn’t think there was much hope of her request being granted, and so was embarrassed even to ask.
"I’d love to, but I have to get this thing done," I explained.
"Is it due tomorrow?"
"No, it’s due next week, but I have other things to do so I need to get this out of the way."
"What other things?"
"Oh, just school work and stuff." I briefly broke my attention from my essay to turn my head to her and smile. "You know." I went back to looking at the essay.
"Well, could you spend a little bit of time with me?"
"I don’t want to get into a long talk tonight."
"We don’t have to. We could do something else." She stopped, and again just watched me scribble down notes to myself. I flipped a few pages in my textbook to double-check some of my information. "I would like to have that talk sometime though."
"Okay, yeah, we can do it sometime." As I looked over the last sentence I had written on the essay, I noticed it almost contradicted what I had written at the beginning. These things are always such a headache to write, I thought to myself, turning over the essay so I could review my beginning paragraphs. "So, did you want to do something tonight?" she asked.
"I can’t spend too much time with you tonight."
"That’s okay. I understand."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Anything."
"Well, did you want to go for a walk around campus."
She shook her head. "It’s too cold out."
"Okay, well we could go to the Cave for some coffee or something."
"No, that place is too smoky. It hurts my eyes."
"We could just stay here."
She looked around my dorm room. "It like to go out."
"Then where do you want to go?" I raised my voice slightly at this point, but I don’t think she even noticed it.
"I don’t know. I just want to get away from these dorms. I’m in them all day, and the colors are so boring and it just depresses me. I’d like to get away."
"But you don’t like any of my suggestions," I complained. "I mean if you keep rejecting all my ideas, how am I going to take you anyplace." Before she had time to respond to that, I changed my mind. "Oh, you know what? On second thought, just forget. Just forget it, I don't have time to go out tonight."
"Okay," she said hurriedly. "We can go to the Cave. The Cave is fine."
"No, I don’t have time tonight."
"But you wanted to just a second ago," she whined.
"I changed my mind."
"But I want to go out." Her voice was still whiny.
"Well if you hadn’t been so difficult than you wouldn’t have lost your chance." In actuality, I wasn’t really trying to punish her finickyness by rescinding my offer. I had just thought about it and decided I really didn’t feel like going out in the first place. This was just an easy way of getting out of the discussion. She usually accepted the guilt for things like this pretty easily, and then would quiet down.
This particular time she just got louder. "I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please let’s go out I’ve been so bored all day."
"We can go out another time," I said calmly. "Don’t you have homework to do tonight?"
"I can’t concentrate."
"So you thought you’d come over and make sure I didn’t get anything done either." I was joking, and I tried to make it obvious to her. I smiled as I said it, and if it was David or Icarus they would have picked up in a second that I wasn’t being serious.
She was never sure when I was joking and when I wasn’t. I think she probably suspected I was joking, but she rushed to deny the accusation in a frantic manner. "No, no no! I just wanted to see why you hadn’t come over. We really were supposed to talk tonight."
I looked down at my essay again. I was making fairly good progress on it. At this rate it shouldn’t take me that long to finish up. "We can talk for a little bit if you want."
"Are you sure we can’t go out?"
"I’m sure. You should have agreed to go to the Cave when you had the chance."
"I didn’t know you would change your mind so quick." Again, she was whining.
"We can talk here for a little bit, and then I have to get back to work. Do you want to talk or not?"
She must have been worried I would rescind this offer as well, because at this point she agreed quickly. "Yeah, here’s fine."
"Okay." I shut my book and turned towards her. "So, what’s new in your life."
"Not much. I spent almost all day in your dorm room."
"Boy, it’s too bad you’re not going out tonight in that case." She shot me a dirty look for that comment, but I couldn’t resist making it.
"Stop picking on me. I’ve had a bad day."
"What’s so bad about it?"
"I’m just having a hard time with my classes. I have so much reading to do, and I can’t keep up with everything."
"Look, we’ve talked about this before, haven’t we?" She turned her head to the side, as if trying to remember what I was referring to. "You can’t read everything the professors assign. You’ll never get caught up in that case. They assign way too much for anyone to possibly read. You’ve got to learn to just skim stuff."
"But my professors say to read it all carefully."
"Well of course they’re going to say that. They’re not going to tell you to skim but you have to. Otherwise you’ll drown in all the reading." I could tell by the look on her face that she was unconvinced, so I just changed the subject. "Hey, what has Orpheus been up to. I haven’t seen him in forever?"
"Not much. I don’t see him a lot any more either."
"Has he done any more painting?"
She shook her head. There was a sad look on her face. "He says he won’t do anymore ever."
"Really? That’s too bad." My words were less than eloquent, but I did feel sorry for Orpheus. He used to be so happy when he was painting.
"I think he just spends all of his time with his girlfriend now."
"What’s her name again?"
"Eurydice."
Eurydice was such a forgettable figure, that I could never remember what her name was. She was always so quiet that she usually just faded into the background whenever she was around. "Oh, that’s right," I said, recognizing the name as soon as I heard it. "I should have known that. So she and Orpheus are pretty serious, huh?"
Clio shrugged. "I guess so. They’re always together now. I don’t know. I don’t really like her that much."
"Why is that?"
Clio shrugged again. "I don’t know. She’s just strange." Clio noticed I was smiling at her. "What? What’s so funny?"
"You know you’re the last person who should complain about that," I said. "Everyone think you’re strange."
"I’m not strange," Clio said in a hurt tone.
"Yes you are. There’s nothing wrong with that. Lots of people are strange."
"I am not."
"Yes you are."
"No I’m not. Stop it."
She was getting upset, so I talked about something else. "Orpheus must like her though, right?"
"He usually likes strange girls."
"It probably seems normal to him after living with you."
"Stop it," she said angrily. "Anyway, I think he doesn’t want to paint anymore because of what those Cadets did to him, but without painting he has this huge whole in his life. Painting was really an obsession to him. He thought about it all the time. I think he’s just trying to use her to fill up that hole." I nodded understandingly. It seemed like a sound theory. "What I don’t like is how different he acts when he’s around her."
"But that’s not her fault."
"No, maybe not. I don’t think she’s very good for him though. She’s always telling him what to do, and he always does whatever she tells him to."
I poked her in the arm playfully. "Now see? Aren’t you glad I’m not like that with you?"
"I don’t think either extreme is good Jon."
"No, I suppose not."
"You know, you really could be a lot nicer to me."
"Oh really?" I drew my head back sharply. I was more pretending to be mad than anything, but of course she could so rarely tell. "Well, maybe you could be a lot nicer to me."
"How am I not nice to you?" she squeaked.
"You’re always bugging me to go out, for one thing."
"That’s because I want to spend time with you. That’s a good thing, isn’t it?"
"Yeah, but you need to be less demanding about it. And more understanding when I have homework to do, or when I want to spend time with my friends."
She looked at me puzzled. "Does it really bug you that much?"
"It would just be a lot nicer if you were more understanding, that’s all."
She was silent for a moment, contemplating what I had said, then she burst forth into apology. "I’m sorry. I didn’t realize I was upsetting you so much. I don’t want to be a bad girlfriend."
"No, look, stop that. Look at me. You’re not a bad girlfriend. You just need to give me a little more space sometimes. Okay?"
She nodded. "Okay, I’m sorry."
"You don’t have to be sorry. Don’t worry about it. Now, I’ve got to get back to this essay, alright?"
"You’re not mad at me, are you?"
"No, don’t be silly. I just want to get some work done. Are you going to be alright walking back by yourself."
"Yeah, I think so."
"Okay then. See you later."
She kissed me before leaving. "Goodbye Jon. I love you."
"I love you too," I answered, before turning back to my essay. "Now, be careful walking back, okay?"
She nodded, and was out the door.