Solar Cycle 24 Read online

  Part 3: Ruth

  Ruth Pennington finished her calculus class on Wednesday, and walked down the hall of the math building of the UCLA campus. The bright sunshine was blinding as she opened the door of the building, she squinted and stared at the smog haze over the sprawling campus.

  She stood at the bus stop and patently waited for the bus. Two other students waited also, and there was a strange man there also whom she had never seen. He looked to be about thirty, but she couldn’t tell for sure.

  The man was watching the two other students who were hugging and kissing; the boy ran his hand down her leg and the display of public love making embarrassed her.

  “The man turned to her and said in a flat husky voice, “They won’t survive you know. Their time has come.”

  The sound of air brakes interrupted the whole scene as the bus pulled up to disgorge its passengers.

  She got on the bus and settled in her seat for the thirty-minute bus ride that would take her one block away from her little apartment that sat on the edge of the town of Lomita.

  The man who spoke sat in the seat next to her looking straight ahead. He was dressed in jeans, and a flannel shirt open which was unbuttoned to reveal the white T-shirt he had on underneath.

  A man cursed at another man; they seemed to be having some disagreement about something, the couple who had been at the bus stop were still making love, and that seemed to be getting out of hand, the low moan of a boy who looked to be about 17 came from another seat. All of a sudden, she was aware of the degradation going on, on that bus. She had ridden the same bus hundreds of times and hadn’t noticed it, but today she noticed it.

  “They won’t survive you know.” The man said again, he turned to look at her with clear soft brown eyes. “You will survive though, and you will wish for death.”

  She stared at him with a shocked look, “Are you speaking to me?”

  “Am I speaking to you?” The man said.

  She turned her head toward the window as she waited for the man to try doing something to her. She sighed a breathe of relief when her stop finally came into view.

  She exited the bus hurriedly as she glanced behind her to see if anyone was following, but she was the only one who had gotten off the bus.

  She walked hurriedly to her apartment, fished in her purse for the key and quickly opened the door. She walked to the small kitchen, opened the door to the refrigerator and poured herself a glass of iced tea. She flopped down in her favorite chair in the small living room and aimed the control at the T.V with a sigh of relief.

  The news anchor was talking about some large wreck on the 605 freeway, but she couldn’t get her mind off the strange man.

  She looked around the small apartment that had been her home for the last two years; it was also her place of safety and sanity, her own little corner of the world.

  She had met Gary Goldsmith while he was in his last semester at U.C.L.A., then he had gone straight from there to work for JPL in Pasadena. He had felt lucky to get the slot; his interest was space exploration; she wanted to get a slot at JPL also.

  She was excited about the Mars exploration, and she wanted to be a part of it, but most of all she wanted to be a part of Gary’s life; she was totally in love with the man.

  They didn’t do much together because both of them were totally immersed in their work, he would come over to her apartment every so often, and they would sleep together, but that had been pretty much it. Neither one of them wanted entanglement's that would interfere with his or her life's work; she wondered if the relationship would last when he took off to JPL.

  She jumped when the phone rang, “Hello Ruth, glad you’re home, listen; I've got some stuff to tell you; you remember I talked to you last week about the Seattle trip?”

  “Hi Gary, I’m glad you called. I had the strangest day, and met the strangest man I have ever met.”

  “Never mind about that Ruth, listen to me, we’re splitting the scene for Seattle this weekend. “

  They talked about an hour as he told her the results of the signal and what they planned to do. She promptly forgot about telling Gary about the strange man as her mind went to work on the problems of leaving U.C.L.A.

  Part 4: A hole in the ground