Jesse smiled back and changed the topic. “What does the voice mean when it says, ‘You got to keep running’?”
“What does that mean to you?”
Jesse thought about the underground railroad and how people had to keep moving to avoid capture. “It sounds like I’m a runaway slave.”
“Remember this. Words, and signs in general have no intrinsic meaning. They do not mean the same thing to every person. The value is in the interpretation, not in the words themselves.”
“I don’t feel like a runaway slave.”
Carmen looked over the top of her glasses again, this time with a discernible twinkle in her eye. “We are all running away from many things and we are all slaves to many masters.”
“I’m not afraid of anything or anybody.” Jesse realized it wasn’t true even before he was finished saying it.
Carmen
