- CHAPTER 3: School Life- © 2.15.2007

Shawn returned to school in September to complete his senior year at UCLA.  It was 2009, and the early half of the year witnessed some of the strangest weather patterns he or anyone could remember.  Patterns might have been a misnomer to future historians, since the barometric variances were anything but predictable for even the professionals.  Some scientists referred to all the "new weather" as El Nino and the Greenhouse Effect causing a chain reaction of atmospheric interactions.  Others theorized that satellite interferences in the ionosphere were having a filter effect on the carbon dioxide and ozone levels.  Some science fiction theorists thought that oversaturation of radio emissions created a negative magnetic field on earth that caused the oceans to reorient their tides.  Regardless of the causes, there was something strange going on in the skies above, and today was a case in point.

With one year left before entering the professional world, Shawn wondered which road in life he would take to reach his final destination.  He had one master goal on top of everything else in his list of ten to accomplish before completing his experience on earth, which was to travel to space.  He carried the list around with him at all times, written in an obscure way that only he could understand.  Of no small coincidence, his degree to be was in the exciting new field of Symbolic Systems.

His thoughts were interrupted by his cell phone, which rang a new melody every time from his database of 38,000 melodies.  This time, it was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony played by an underground recording artist who called himself Cabinet Maker.

“Hello?” Shawn blurted without looking at the caller ID.

His favorite voice was on the other line.

“Listen baby, I’m over at the tennis court with Mary and she locked herself out of her car.  Her engine is running but we’re completely locked out.  Can you help us?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Shawn shouted.  He couldn’t believe this girl Mary.  She was a tennis player from Massapequa, New Jersey, who was always causing a little scene here and there.  But she was also Sarah’s roommate and best friend, so Shawn grew to accept Mary’s little accidents as a byproduct of being cute.

“Give me five minutes.”

Continued...