Shaving has always been a relaxing habit for Levi in the mornings. The conciliate scent of shaving cream accompanied by the fresh, clean feel of aftershave was his way of calming down and rationalizing through his schedule and the day ahead of him. After concluding his morning ritual, he promptly finished dressing in a stately manner and left his tidy apartment with his briefcase of homework. As he strolled through the corridor and down the stairs, into the warm, agreeable front lobby, he was met with a greeting from an overworked college student.
"Are you actually going to Professor J's class today?" inquired the vaguely awake student with a tired-aggravated tone.
"Yeah, I can't stand to miss a lecture, if I do, I could lose my scholarship," Levi replied oblivious to the contentment in his classmates' voice. He wants one to notice much about the other people around him. He was focused on making it through school and helping the remainder of his family at home. That meant saving every single penny he could get his hands on.
"I doubt your mothers' funeral could keep you from class."the student continued, changing his tone to be more friendly he said, "I would move pretty quickly out there if I were you, the wind is close to a tornado, and I'd hate to see another one of our classmates go missing." He was referencing to their classmates who had only shown for tests and those who had dropped the course entirely.
"I can handle a little wind, it's bad blood with Professor Jenkins that haunts me. I'll see you after class." He waved to his classmate and hurried out the door. The wind greeted him as a tormentor would pulling and tearing at his neatly placed clothes till they were quite disheveled. As he tramped through the mile towards his lecture, several papers of rather important notes and essays are plucked from his archaic briefcase like ripe berries off a bush. They flew away unconstrained until they were caught unexpectedly by an ancient tree that has stood guard on the campus lawn for an unmemorable amount of time. Circling the arboreal watchman, Levi was perplexed on how he would ever retrieve the due essays in time. He could wait till the wind tore them from the branches, but that would only lower his chances of achieving his far fetched goal.
"Hey," whooped a boyish voice from the far-reaching limbs of the great oak. "Whatcha doing throwing all this paperwork in the tree, it's like throwing bits of fur on a cat."
Too bewildered by the talking flora to respond Levi stared dumbfoundingly into the tree.
"Hey!" the voice whooped again, with a little more annoyance in his voice.
Startled back to a reasonable state Levi Responded, "It wasn't my intention to have the papers fly into the tree. Do you think you can hand them down to me?"
"Sure I can hand them down, but what was your intention with the flying snooze-fest."
"It's my essay for a class I'm taking with Professor Jenkins. I Intend to hand them to him eventually. Hopefully, they'll stay in one piece till then."
"That's funny, I have a class today with Professor Jenkins, but I don't plan on going, I've finished most of the work due this semester and I could stand to sit through another boring - snoozefest lecture of his. They're completely redundant!" the speaker finished as he chuckled with himself.
Cringing slightly Levi asked for his essay again only to be interrupted with a rather clangorous shuffle of leaves.
"Here ya go, If ya ever need help with this kinda stuff again just call Mel. I'm here to meet your trees needs." said the rather slimly built, brown haird, the brown eyed student who was smiling down on his classmate.
Levi cringed again at the flamboyant introduction. "Thanks for the help," he stated hurriedly as rushed away from his odd class-mate.
"Hey don't be off so fast. How are you going to repay for getting your papers down for you?" Mel hurriedly said as he swiftly climbed down the tree to chase after Levi.
