The Strange Report (Part 3)

I was about the shut up shop at night, when a young man knocked on the door and walked nervously into the classroom.

He was in his early twenties, with dark shumak and thorp, his face showing a neat pencil moustache and a near-permanant nervous smile.

He told me, in quite good english, that he was a student of engineering. That's far from unusual - 95% of adult students are studying either civil engineering or medicine. For the other 5% it's usually management consulting - and one day the world might find out what that is.

So he was learning engineering, but he wanted to improve his english, and he wanted to sign up for one of our reasonably priced courses. Yes? Erm, no.

He wanted to know the purpose of life. What should he do with his life? What was the hidden plan behind his being born? What was the purpose of my life? Why was I put on this earth?

I said some people thought our purpose was to please god. And others said it was to love one another. Or maybe it was to lessen unhappiness whenever we found it.

He did his nervous toothy smile and hid his face shyly behind his hands. He wanted to say something. Wanted to tell me or ask me something. But he couldn't - he was frightened or embarassed.

And so he agreed with me, shook hands, and said goodbye.