Monthly Archives: September 2010

Because this novella is currently in the process of submission, I will only be publishing short excerpts here rather than the entire story. This excerpt takes place a few days after the last, and Nate (the “boy”) has been traveling with Jack (the “old man”) for a few days, and have spent the night around a campfire with another traveler named Albert.

It was still dark when he was awoken by a gentle touch to his shoulder. Jack was leaning over him, his finger to his lips. Pointing at the still sleeping Albert, he gestured for Nate to get up and grab his things. Curious, Nate did so, hefting his pack onto his back and following Jack deeper into the forest. When they’d gotten a good distance from the campfire, and the sky was beginning to turn pink and light, Jack stopped and fished in his pockets for his flask.

“Why did we leave Albert?” Nate asked him, setting down his rucksack and pulling a granola bar from it. He broke it in half and handed one half to Jack.

“You know how we talked about what we’re runnin’ from?” Jack asked, biting into the bar.

Nate nodded.

“Well, Albert’s mostly runnin’ from himself, but that don’t work too good,” Jack said. “When you go runnin’ from yourself, you always get caught.”

Nate’s brow wrinkled. “Why is he running from himself?”

“Did some things. Real bad things. The kind of things what changes a man, not like takin’ enough food to line your belly or doin’ what you got to do to survive, but the kind of things that ain’t done except ’cause you just wanna hurt somebody.”

“He seemed really nice,” Nate frowned.

“Sometimes the monsters under the bed look downright cuddly, ’til they’ve got their teeth in you,” Jack said. “Don’t worry none, boy. Just wanted to put some space between us.”

“Are we getting close to the swamp?”

“We’re gettin’ close on the river. Not quite to the swamp yet.”

“Are we going into the swamp?” Nate asked. “My dad used to like the swamp.”

“Mebbe. Swamp ain’t so bad, not like Albert talks. He got a mighty strong fear of the swamp, for good reason. But ‘fore we get too far, you and me got to come to an understandin’.”

Nate wrinkled his forehead. “What? What’s wrong? Why?”

“I know what yer runnin from, near about as far as you gonna tell me, anyhow,” Jack said. “Now I want you to think on what you’re runnin’ to. You can run away all you like, but you won’t never get nowhere, ‘less you know what you’re runnin’ to, and you got to know what you want when you get there.”

“I don’t understand,” Nate said, looking up at the old man.

“Well, it’s like this, boy. Life can take you down some funny old roads, but if you don’t know what you’re travelin’ for, you won’t never get where you’re goin’. You can think on it a while, ain’t got to have an answer right now.”

Nate nodded. He still didn’t quite understand what the old man was talking about, and was glad he would have some time to decide. He hadn’t thought it all out, when he’d run away, and he didn’t really want to be left alone, this far from home.

Jack finished his half of the granola bar, took a sip from whatever noxious smelling liquid was in the flask, and started walking again, grabbing a gnarled stick from the ground to poke at the underbrush with. For moccasins, Jack said. Nate followed, watching suspiciously at the stick and his own feet. Nate hadn’t thought about snakes, when he ran.

The boy ran.

He could hear the policemen stomping through the forest behind him, calling his name. He could hear the man with them. The man was angry, and the boy knew that by now he’d be red and splotchy. The boy thought about how he’d left his  mother standing on the porch in a small circle of light, clutching his baby sister to her chest.  She was worried, with that pinched look that she always got, where her forehead wrinkled between her eyes and her lips got thin and tight. He didn’t like to worry her, but sometimes there was no choice.

The boy kept running. His rucksack bounced heavily against his back and his legs were getting tired, but he could run for a good bit further. He could outrun the policemen, who were old and fat and out of shape. They didn’t have to give chase very often out here, where the worst crime of the last year had involved a cow and Mrs. Merriweather’s petunias.

He ran deep into the forest. The spanish moss that draped over the live oaks reached down from the trees like grey fingers to tug at his clothes and slow him down, but the voices behind him had become faint and rare, only the occasional call.

He took a moment to pause then, bending over with his hands on his knees, his breath coming hard and fast. Looking over his shoulder, he scanned the forest around him for flashlights and noise, anything that would indicate that they were still coming.

There were no lights and no sound except the sing-song calls of the tree-frogs and crickets. It was very dark. The boy had a small lantern in his backpack, the wind-up sort that didn’t require batteries. His mom had gotten it for him before a camping trip with his dad one time, years ago. It had mostly been used for those stormy nights when the electricity went out, as it tended to do at the smallest gust of wind. The boy hadn’t been camping in a long time.

He couldn’t turn on the lantern. It would show anyone looking through the trees  where he was. It was so very dark. Even the moon was just the barest sliver in the sky. The boy had only just barely gotten over his childhood fear of the dark, or at least that’s what he told himself. He was too old, he muttered to himself, to be afraid of the dark.

There was a rustle in the bushes, the boy turned to start running again. He couldn’t get caught.

A tall old man burst out of the bushes and jumped, jumped higher than the boy had ever seen any man jump, and he shifted as he jumped. Somewhere in the air the old man seemed to shimmer and his hair began to look more like fur, the flapping of his long coat seemed more like a tail, and the boy could have sworn it was a large cat, not an old man, that landed crouched in the bush. The boy blinked his eyes.

“Well?” the bush said. “Come on,  run! They’re gonna catch us!”

The boy rubbed at his eyes again, but there were flashlights coming his way now, bobbing and blinking between the trees. So the boy ran.

© 2010 Jennifer L. Davis

“The Boy Ran” is currently in the middle of the submission process as a longish short story or short novella.

“Education is like a communicable disease. It makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs, and then you have the urge to pass it on.” – Terry Pratchett

These days, more and more, every student who graduates high school is told that they absolutely must go to college.  We have unprecedented access to low-interest federally subsidized loans, scholarship, and grant programs that allow lower-income students to attend relatively easily.  The opportunity to go to college is available to everyone, regardless of background.  This is a very good thing.

That said, not every person is meant for college.  What is more, by pushing students into college who would otherwise attend vocational schools or directly enter the workforce, the colleges themselves are being forced to change to support these students.  Financially, the increase in the number of people attending is a wonderful boon to the universities. However, as a result, colleges and universities are becoming institutions of professional training rather than the refuges of academia.

What’s the difference?  People have always gone to college to get better jobs.  Except now I’m hearing reports of universities phasing out programs that are not specifically career oriented, programs that do not lead to a specific, defined job as the endpoint.  Schools where you can major in “Art Education”, perhaps, but not in “Art” – because the only reason anyone should get an art degree is if they want to be a teacher, right? “Artist” is not a valid career choice.  Neither, apparently, are  “Writer” or “Musician.”

Just as the primary and secondary schools are beginning to phase out Arts programs entirely to save money, post-secondary schools are beginning to limit their funding for the Arts.

There has always been a bit of give-and-take between professional training and academia – that is, the ideal of learning for the sake of learning – but there was always a balance until recently.  The value of learning cultural things – like about the arts and humanities, for instance – has always been a core part of our educational system. More and more, it seems like we have to fight to keep these important elements in place.

It is good to have a well-trained professional workforce – these are the people who make the money move, after all.  But without the arts, culture, the humanities, what’s the point?  The arts are what make us human, not how much money we make.

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Here is my gallery of photos from DragonCon this year. I’ll be putting them behind a break to keep from overwhelming slow web-browsers, but this post is image heavy, so bear with it!

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Image via Wikipedia

We started our Sunday out with the panel featuring Sean Maher and Summer Glau, Simon and River Tam from Firefly.  It was nice to see them together, and they were clearly very fond of each other, as they discussed how their brother-sister relationship during the show extended even off the set.  As they have always seemed, both were rather shy and soft-spoken and seemed a bit overwhelmed.

We hadn’t yet done much more than glance into the dealer and exhibit halls yet, so we headed into the mass of people to have our look around.  I continued to fail in my search for a tiny tophat to go with my steampunk costume, but I did get an autographed copy of the Browncoats: Redemption DVD and (once again) tried to convince the BF that he would look wonderful in a utilikilt. (He does have the legs for it!) We went over to look through the Walk of Fame again, and happened upon a huge costume photoshoot while we were at the Hilton, so I went out to take (lots) of pictures.  While we were wandering around, we also had an encounter with K-9 and about six incarnations of the Doctor.  Unfortunately, I never did find the Matt Smith lookalike again to get a good picture, though I kept seeing him at a distance. (Seriously…this guy could be a body double.)

We went to a Babylon 5 panel that was supposed to feature Claudia Christian and Jason Carter together, discussing the relationship of Marcus and Ivonova. Unfortunately, even we did not avoid Celebrity Drama this weekend (after hearing how the Star Trek: The Next Generation panel fell apart).  Claudia Christian seemed to have decided to use the panel to plug for her current projects and didn’t want to share the stage with her co-star. Initially, it seemed that the back-and-forth between the pair was just good-natured teasing, but about 15 minutes into the panel, Claudia Christian picked up her things and left (apparently completely baffling the audience and Jason Carter about what had been done to piss her off).  It seemed like a completely unexpected bit of prima donna-ish behavior from her, because nothing particularly insulting had been said.

Jason Carter, however, saved the panel and managed to turn it into one of the funniest we’d seen this Con.  He didn’t seem to think it a chore to discuss Babylon 5 or his character and was quite happy to answer questions put forth by the audience.  He was hilarious and kind and appreciative of the fans.

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