First Draft: Chapter 16

As a kid I used to love running outside in the fall.  I liked being outside all the time anyway, but there is just something about the fall.  The leaves on the trees are changing colors of course, and all that jazz.  It was beautiful and all, but as a kid I never noticed it.  I was too busy running around causing trouble I guess.
Fall days are so cool, especially early fall.  It’s the time of year where no matter what it is like inside, the weather outside is always better.  Most fall days have a breeze, and in my mind all fall days will forever be breezy because I remember the breeze so fondly.  Standing on top of a hill, overlooking the city, and feeling the breeze just surround my body.  My hair being blown back by the wind, and my eyes being kissed by the breeze.  No matter how hard we ran, we never felt hot for long because the breeze would just refresh us.
And yet for all this I don’t think I’ll ever be able to love the month of fall.  As the leaves turned colors and the heat of the summer faded away to a pleasant coolness, I knew all too well what that meant.  It was an unwelcome reminder that summer was gone beyond recovery, and that school had come.  It is the worse feeling imaginable to a child.  At the University I liked it even less.  Now that I am done with school it still haunts me.  The changing colors of the leaves still send chills down my spine as a reminder of what they once meant.
And so when I noticed the weather was turning slightly cooler, and one day I saw a leaf that didn’t look as green as it could have, I knew that my second summer as a University Student was about to end, and I entered my third year as a University Student.  Same single room, same dorm hall, same everything.

A friendly tap on my shoulder sought to draw me out of my thoughts.  When I didn’t respond immediately the hand placed itself on my shoulder more firmly.  “Jonny!”  I turned around and saw Hermes.  “Jon, good to see you here.”
I forced a smile even though I was still feeling somewhat down about the start of the school year.  “Yeah, well it’s good to be here.”
“Well how are you man?  How was your summer?  Tell me all about it.”
I shrugged.  Where to begin?  “Same old summer I guess,” I responded.  “And you?”
“Not too bad.”  He smiled.  “I’ve got a few stories but I’ll tell you later Jonny.  Have you been here long?”
“No, not really.  Not long at all I guess.”
Hermes waved his hand, gesturing for me to follow him.  “Well come on.  There’s lots to see.”
We walked down the hallways of the basement, talking as we walked.  “It looks like you guys put on a pretty good show this year,” I complemented.
Hermes smiled.  “Hey, thanks man.”  He grabbed a toothpick from the glass nearby and put it in his mouth.  He started chewing on it.  He did it so automatically I don’t think he realized what he was doing until he saw me looking at him strange.  “Hey, I like to chew on these things, alright.”  His voice feigned anger.  I laughed.  A stocky arm swung out and hit me playfully in the chest.  I responded by grabbing the arm and twisting behind him.  He tried to twist out of my grip, but when he discovered he could not, he reached backwards and grabbed my leg, and tried to lift it up to make my loose my balance.  When that didn’t work he yelled out something like, “Okay Jonny, enough enough.  We can’t wrestle here, we’ll lose our dignity.”
I let go and he let go shortly afterwards.  “Boy, you’ve always got to take things one-step too far, don’t you Jon.”  Again, he was only pretending to be angry.
“You started it,” I said in my defense.
He breathed out sharply in a sound that was almost a laugh.  “I didn’t think you were going to wrestle me in the middle of the art show man.”
We walked further down, pausing occasionally to look at various art that caught our eye.  “Didn’t I first meet you at one of these things once?” Hermes asked.
“Yeah, two years ago.  I came here with Icarus, and we meant up with you.”
“That’s right, that’s right.  Where is Icarus?”
I looked around.  “Well, I’m sure he’s here somewhere.  This is the kind of thing he would like.”
“We ought to get that kid to come to some guild meetings.  I don’t understand why he doesn’t go.”
“I don’t think he has the attention span to sit through it.”
“But has he ever gone to any meetings at all?”
I searched my memory.  He might have the first year.  It’s possible I could have forgotten.  “I don’t know.  We’ll have to ask him.”
"You should really submit some of your work to these shows sometime Jonny."
I shook my head.  "No way man.  I'm not good enough for this."
"Jon, it's a university art show.  It's not a big deal.  Anyone who wants to have their art shown can do it."
"I'd be embarrassed to have my stuff on display."  This was no case of false modesty on my part.  My artwork was rubbish, absolute rubbish.  I knew it.
"It's your voice Jon.  It doesn’t matter if it's good or bad.  The point is you’re the only one who can do the art you do."
Hermes was soon distracted by another one of his friends, and I quietly wandered off by myself.
The place was filled with student art.  One picture in particular seemed to catch my eye, in part for no other reason then every other person was just walking right passed it.
It didn’t make any sense to me at all.  It was white canvas, with red and blue paint scattered across it, and a little bit of pink mixed in as well.  There were various other things attached to the canvas.  A piece of string was strung from it, a purple ribbon adorned the bottom edge, different pieces of paper were stuck to the canvas at different points.  The whole thing had a very cluttered look to it, and the frayed edges of the canvas contributed very much to this look.
Unfortunately it was stuck off in a corner, and the lighting was so bad I wasn’t sure if I could see it clearly or not.  I strained my eyes for a minute or so, then gave up.  I turned to go and saw a girl looking towards me.
She was gorgeous.  She was slightly below average height, although the shoes she was wearing elevated her somewhat.  Her eyes were wide and brown and beautiful.  She had long brown hair, and a slender face.  And her clothes were interesting too.  Her pants had holes in the knees where her red stockings showed through, and her white shirt looked like it had been deliberately covered in paint.  She was looking right past me at the artwork, not even seeming to notice me.  And then she ran off.  Right in the middle of the art show she just took off running down the hall.  I was intrigued by this girl and moved to follow her, to see where she was going, but I was cut off by Icarus.
“There’s the man,” Icarus exclaimed, seeing me from down the hall and walking forward to intercept me.  I looked over his shoulder down the hall at the girl disappearing, before returning to look at him.  “Good to see you Jon!”  Icarus did not even seem to notice I was distracted, embracing me in an enthusiastic hug.  Of course Icarus and I had both spent the summer in Urbae, and seen each other regularly.  Now he was acting like we were being reunited after time apart.  I didn’t try and understand.  I long ago gave up trying to understand Icarus.  “So how do you like the show?  Have you seen Hermes?”
“Yeah, he’s around here somewhere.”
“Jon, do you realize what this means?  This is our last show before classes start.  We’re in our third year now Jon.  We’re getting old fast.”
“I know it.”
“That’s why I like this little show so much Jon.  It’s just like one last burst of freedom before we all go back to our studies.  Hey, has FJC started up for you yet?”
“It never ended.  We’ve been training all summer.”
Icarus shook his head.  My, you boys train a lot, don’t you?  What are you training for?”
“I wish I knew.”

Two years of the FJC had somewhat dulled me to the pain of it.  At first I couldn’t stand waking up so early in the morning, but soon I couldn’t imagine not waking up that early.  I couldn’t sleep in even if I tried to.  My body also quickly adjusted to the abuse that it was put through, and after two years I had not only bulked up significantly, but was also able to run faster then ever before and I even increased my agility.
But I still grew to hate it more and more.  The routine became increasingly boring.  Same thing every morning for two years.  I was feeling like I had all I could take, like my very sanity was about to disintegrate.
The beginning of the school year was always tough too.  Not that FJC had gotten any easier during the summer.  Not at all.  If anything it had increased in difficulty.  But during the summer once we finished our session the rest of the day was ours.
Once school started, I was slammed with class and homework and I felt like I had absolutely no free time.  As class started once again, I began to get depressed and longed to end FJC.
And as I began my third year I became aware that my time at the university was half over.   Reminders were everywhere.  Icarus couldn’t stop talking about it for one thing.  It seemed like every day for the first week of class he would say something like, ‘Man, imagine, only two more short years and we’re out of here.  Far out, huh?”  Like the rest of us, Icarus had never been anything but a student and the prospect of leaving school to get a job seemed unreal to him.
There were other reminders too.  I had to pick my classes carefully to make sure I could get done in time.  I had decided last year to study accounting, and that lasted almost a month before I dropped it.  I then decided to study business, and that also was short lived.  I flirted with the idea of studying literature, but the day after I announced my intentions to the university staff, my father arrived at my dorm room and insisted I study something useful.  I then decided on general biology, which I stayed with until the end of the year when I switched over to math.
And at the beginning of my third year I decided to switch over to geography.  However I was warned by the university faculty that if I wanted to finish my schooling in the next two years I would have to stop switching my area of study.
Reminders were everywhere.   Even Zeus himself began to talk about it, approaching me and the others in my class, and telling us how our time with FJC was halfway over, and that the younger students look up to us and we should do our best to set a good example.
And it was inescapable for me to avoid the fact that in two short years I would be done with school and in some sort of government job that I would have for the rest of my life.  And the thought terrified me.

The next time I saw her was in the cafeteria.  I had just gotten my food, and I saw her sitting alone at a table.  My daily lunches with David and Helen were a thing of the past.  A new year had given us each different class schedules, and it was no longer so convenient to meet.  I had indicated I might sit by Icarus, but once he had his food he was so busy socializing with his other friends I knew I wouldn’t be missed.
So I went up to her table.  “Mind if I join you,” I asked.
She had been gazing down rather intently at her food, and looked up at me sharply when I interrupted her thoughts.  I wasn’t sure if she would recognize me from the art show or not.  I couldn’t really tell just by looking at her.
“Yeah, sure,” she said, moving her tray in closer to her so I would have a spot to set my food.
I sat down.  “I really liked your piece at the art show.  That was your art, right?  The one with the purple ribbon on it?”
“And the string?”  I nodded.  “Yes.”
“It was very interesting.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, sure it was.”
“I didn’t like that piece all that much.  I just submitted it so I could have something in the show.  I have two others I’m working on that are much better, but they weren’t done yet.”
“What are they?”
Her face contorted as she concentrated on the question.  Both of her hands were brought up to her temples.  She closed her eyes briefly before concluding.  “I don’t know.  They’re hard for me to describe.”
Fair enough.  “So how long does it take you to complete a painting?”
“I don’t know.  It takes me a long time usually to think of what I want to do.  After that it really depends on what I’m doing.”  I began to notice how much she used her hands when she talked.  They were always in front of her and moving all over.
“You know I paint a little bit too,” I said.
“Okay.”  She seemed to take the statement as an information tid bit, and not as a piece of the conversation.  She took another bite of her food before finally asking, “What sort of things do you paint?”
I shrugged.  “All sorts of things I guess.  I don’t know.  I mostly just paint at the art guild meetings.”  That was a somewhat true statement.  In fact I never painted outside of the art guild meetings.  “Have you ever gone to any of the meetings?”
“No, this is my first year here.  I don’t think I really have time to go to anything extra with schoolwork and everything.  I usually have a hard enough time getting stuff done as it is.”
“Who are your favorite artists?”
“I like a lot of them.  I really like Sophocles.  I use his style a lot in my paintings.”
Sophocles.  That name sounded familiar.  “I love Sophocles!”
A small flash went off in her eyes.  It was so brief I wasn’t sure if I caught it.  “He’s incredible isn’t he.”
Now where had I heard about Sophocles?  Did Hermes mention him before?  “Yes very.  He’s a genius really.  Have you looked at a lot of his stuff?”
“I have a book of all his paintings.  Which one is your favorite?”
“I don’t really have any favorites.”
“I like his swan painting the best.  Have you seen that one?”
“Um, no I don’t think I have yet.  Which one is that again?”
“Where the woman is transformed into the swan.”  Her voice was patient.
“No, that doesn’t sound familiar at all.”
“Really?”  Her right eyebrow rose.  The rest of her face had a somewhat confused look to it.  “That’s strange.  I thought that was one of his more popular works.  The one where the woman is being transformed in the swan.”
Who is this guy?  That sounded like a weird painting.  “Maybe I have seen that one.”
“What did you thing of it?”
I was floundering here, and needed a way out of this.  “You know, to be perfectly honest I really have a hard time interpreting a lot of art.”
“What do you mean?”
I chose my words carefully.  “Well I enjoy art, and I like looking at it,” I paused, “but I don’t really understand it a lot of the time.”
She still didn't get it.  "You don't understand it?"
"Yeah, like I don't know what it means.  I don't know what the artist was trying to get at."  Well, how else do I describe it?  This wasn't a particularly tough concept anyway.  "Do you know what I mean?"
"Oh yeah, I have that all the time too."  She leaned forward.  "What I do is I try and study paintings by Virgil."
Another name that sounded familiar, but I decided not to pretend I knew who he was.  "Why Virgil?"
"I figure if I can understand him, I can understand anyone."
"I'd be interested in seeing his stuff."
"They have copies of his paintings in the library," She said.
I switched subjects.  "Do you paint a lot?"
She shrugged.  "When I have time.  It's something I like to do though."
"Like how many paintings do you do in a week?"
"In a week?  I'm lucky if I can get one done in a month."  She took a bite of food before saying, "What you really ought to see is my brother's art.  He's really good at it."
"Older brother?"
"No, he's a year younger then me.  He's so smart though that they let him into the University a year early."  She paused again to eat.  "You know I never did get your name."
"Jon.  I mean Jonathon.  What's yours?"
"Clio."
"I'd really be interested in seeing some of your other art sometime Clio."
"No, it's not very good.  You wouldn't want to see it."  She became animated suddenly.  "You could see my brother's art though.  It's very good.  I think you would like it a lot."
Whatever.  "Okay, yeah that sounds cool."  I noticed people were leaving the cafeteria, and realized it was probably time for class to start.  "I've got to go," I said, standing up, "but it was really nice to meet you Clio."  I stuck out my hand for her to shake, which she did with a confused look on her face.
"Yeah, nice to meet you too."  She said in a voice I wasn't sure how to interpret.  She probably wondered who this weird boy was who just sat down and struck up a conversation with her out of the blue.  I hurried away to class, and only after I left did I realize I had not bothered to find out where I could contact her.

"Come on, move it Jonathon!" Zeus yelled out at me.  "That's the slowest pace you've kept all week."  Automatically, I sprinted ahead so that I was even with the rest of the group.  "Come on faster Jonathon."  I ran to the front of the group.  There were about fifteen or twenty of us keeping running together.  Other members of the FJC were doing other things.
We turned the corner of the track.  Orion and I were the only ones at the front now.  Orion was always at the front.  He was always the fastest, always the best at everything.  He jostled me slightly as we moved around the curve.  I got out of his way to accommodate him, and then returned to my pace.  I knew he hated it that I was keeping up with him, but Zeus was not about to let me relax my pace.
As usual the sun was only just beginning to shine as we ran in the cool fall air.  The gravel track made a crunching sound as it was rhythmically pounded by our feet.  We ran past the FJC building, around, past a couple trees that had exploded into color.  The whole time we kept our steady pace.
“That’s it boys,” Zeus called out.  “That’s what I like to see Jonathon.  Keep those legs moving.”  Orion picked up the pace a little, and I did so to keep up with him even though my lungs protested.  I tried not to focus on the pain.  If you let your mind dwell on these kind of things you’re as good as done for.  I tried not to think about the end either.  The only thing you can do is just to keep pushing yourself.  If you start thinking about the end, it will never come.  We turned the corner again and we kept running down the track.  “Okay, keep it up.  Keep it up.”  Zeus turned his back to us to shout on some other cadets climbing the wall.
The next straight away opened up for us.  I became aware of how heavy I was breathing.  It too was a sort of rhythmic sound, very loud but very steady.  Orion was not breathing hard at all.  He didn’t even look strained.  His breathing was soft and quiet.  The sound of the track beneath my feet, and the sand and pebbles as they crunched under my shoes, was rhythmic and steady and calm and I focused on that sound.  We ran past another tree, and I felt glad to be outside for a brief moment.  The fall leaves were beautiful.
Orion suddenly turned in on me as I was running and his leg flashed out into my path.  It was too quick for me to react and by the time I realized I was being tripped I was already on my way down.  My hands automatically sprang out in front of me to protect my body, but I had been running at a pretty fast pace.  I was flying forward with a lot of momentum even as I was on my way down.
My hands briefly contacted the ground before the rest of me.  Small rocks cut into my palms before my chin hit the track.  My head bounced up again after knocking into the ground, but my chest skidded along the gravel.  The other runners were unable to avoid me and stepped over me and in some cases on me as they continued on their way.
I lay in a cloud of dust as they kept on running.  I was still breathing heavily, and I felt like I inhaled a handful of sand.  I coughed heavily, and spit some of the dirt out.  My eyes burned from the dust.  My whole body was covered in the dust.
I rolled over slowly, and then sat up.  I instinctively dusted off my hands, but then winced in pain.  A couple of small rocks had gotten themselves lodged inside my skin.  It wasn’t very deep at all, but it hurt just the same.  I looked myself over.  There was a flow of blood coming from my knee.  I didn’t even feel pain there but I knew I would as soon as my senses returned.  There was so much dirt around the area I couldn’t even see the cut.
I checked the other obvious areas.  My other knee was a little bruised, but it looked all right.  One of my elbows was bleeding too.  My chest was pretty sore but when I looked under my shirt I saw it was just scratched.  It was all red from where it had slid along the ground, but the skin was not even broken.  I slowly got to my feet, taking great care not to use my palms against the ground.
“Jonathon!”  Zeus was storming over to me.  “What are you doing just standing there?”
I would have thought the site of me bloodied would have been sufficient explanation.  “Sir I- “
“I don’t want to hear it.  I told you to keep up.”  The rest of the pack was at the other end of the track by this time.
“Sir, I’m hurt.  Would it be okay if-“
“That’s hurt?  Why that’s ridiculous boy.  You call cuts and scraps being hurt?  If you don’t keep up I’ll show you what being hurt really is.”  And so I resumed running.  And though Zeus screamed and yelled at me I never did catch up to Orion again, although I felt like I lost a lung trying.
At the end of the session, when everyone left to go to the showers, I stayed behind and lay down on the grass.  “You better shape up your act by tomorrow Jonathon,” Zeus said as he walked past me.  “You have another day like today and I’ll knock you off your loop.”  Zeus kept angrily walking.  I struck the ground with my hand.  In that moment my mind was made up never to go back again.