Question: Does the lack of conversation add to our hero's sense of isolation or does it make the story more boring? On a side note and Good News! that doesn't mean I don't need to add some conversation to what I already have between him and Ashley and him and the Good Reverend. Now welcome to Chapter Seven of Sky Pilot!

Chapter Seven

When I get to the Military Academy Seminary Program, discipline began as soon as we got off the boat with physical training in the rain. They can’t make it rain, it just seems that way. Being in a rain forest helps though.

They also have this special way to start training. It’s called the Personal Physical Barrier Test. They say the goal is to find the limits of a plebe’s physical endurance. Senior Students call it “Pant, Puke, and Pass Out.” New students start running a cross country course over steep hills, through rocky valleys, and into deep bogs until we, obviously, pant, puke, and finally pass out.

According to legend someone drowns about every five years because they pass out in a bog. They aren’t found for hours and by then it’s too late. It’s possible; and I can see how that’s the perfect legend told by upperclassmen to plebes. It’s also the reason I puked in the bog and passed out on the rocks. I didn’t drown, but it hurt like hell.

As for patching me up, I was doused with some ancient elixir and dumped in my cell with a Hebrew bible, a Greek bible and a couple of dictionaries. What year is this and I’m sitting in a rain forest reading paper? Maybe the first miracle of Jesus was wine at the wedding in Cana, but getting paper not to dissolve in a rain forest must be the latest. Why we aren’t using tablets must be another version of discipline. Scripture on paper in ancient texts, this is going to be a fun summer.

The worst part, the absolute worst part of all is the music. It’s nothing but flutes and gongs and computer tones going on and on for hours with brief choral interludes. I remember some churches doing this “music” at home, but it never was for me. It makes me want to gouge my ear drums out of my head. I can just barely concentrate. I’ve taken to making ear plugs made out of shirt tails. I’m guessing it’s not approved by the Commander, but I’ll take my chances. After what has happened to me I’m more than willing go to the brig over bad music. It would be my luck that they would pipe that infernal sound into my prison cell at triple volume though.

So it was ironic that I ended up being detailed to the library archives. I was one of the plebes cataloging music. I ended up with 20^th Century music. Classical, I never appreciated classical music. Some people loved it; I thought it was only so much screaming. Why couldn’t I get something better? Not more modern mind you, I can’t stand that garbage; but classical music is not my idea of a good time either. At least these tunes range about three minutes instead of hours on end. That’s a bonus.

My first day in the archives they put me in front of a listening unit with a pair of headphones and a database. So I start listening. How in the cosmos do I decide where to start? I’m not the first plebe to dig into this database. There are gaps all over 20^th Century music. There are about a dozen genres like Rock, Jazz, Blues, Reggae, Country/Western, and Soul. Then there are subgenres like Ska, Afropunk, Bubble Gum, Roots, and whatever Country Rock is along with hundreds of others. I think some people take this job a little too seriously.

I decided to find the most obscure name I could and decided to go with Lenny Kravitz, and then I saw his picture; Black, pierced, tattooed, hair styles I had to look up known as dreadlocks or Afro. Reading his biography I found out his mother was a Caribbean Christian and his Father was a New York Jew. The credits on the recordings also showed he played most of the instruments himself. He played rock, rhythm and blues, soul, even cover songs. With a dozen or so recordings this would be a good month worth of cataloging. I prayed to God his music was as interesting as his bio.

So that was my day, pant, puke, pass out, listening, studying, and sleeping. The best part was if I was completely exhausted at the end of the day I would be less upset about how I got here.