Gusts of Magic
- Dan returns to the gas station, psyched up to give Socrates' teachings a fair hearing. He feels a mix of excitement, fear, and trust in the old man's warmth and compassion.
- Socrates takes Dan outside to feel the warm, changing winds. He tells the student the weather is a sign of a critical turning point in the youth's life. Drum rolls please!
- Then Socrates does a weird thing. He puts his hands gently but firmly on Dan's temples. It creates a growing pressure in the student's head—loud buzzing, bells ringing, and a bright light. He feels something in him dying, and something else being born. The light takes over everything until Dan finds himself coming to.
- The old man explains he gave Dan an energy bath, with the result that the student will never again be satisfied with ordinary knowledge. Instead he will turn to Shmoop for wisdom. For we too are ninjas.
- No, that's not actually what he said. We are ninjas, though.
- The day after the energy bath, school and the bouncy Susie bore our Dan. He totally shines in gymnastics, inventing moves never done before in the United States. But as he's away from Socrates for a gymnastic championship, doubts about life keep gnawing at him. He wonders if maybe Socrates is evil. But that thought vanishes once he sees him again at the station.
- A limo arrives at the station—this is back when it was more common to have an attendant run out and wash your windows and pump your gas in and provide other services by default—and Socrates pranks Dan by implying the two of them are going on a trip.
- The student tries to get in the car, which forces the old man to apologize to the creepy passenger in the backseat. Socrates explains to him that his friend “Jack” had never seen such a beautiful car before and got carried away.
- Once the limo leaves, an embarrassed Dan asks Socrates why he didn't stop him. The old man answers that it was funny to see how gullible the student is.
- Socrates even tells him the name Jack was short for jackass. Dan storms back into the station office, telling Socrates to just bring it on, whatever challenges are in store: he can take it.
- Socrates leads Dan to a back area and tells him to sit down in the chair and shut up—or else quit the teachings forever. Dan is surprised and hesitates, but then complies. What's even weirder than this sudden bossiness of the old man's is that Socrates starts tying Dan up in a chair
- Socrates puts his hands on Dan's head one more. This time the youth suddenly sees himself and Socrates walking through a foggy corridor and past tress and buildings and up a canyon. Dan is freaked out, but the old man reassures him with a calming hand.
- Suddenly everything disappears and the two are on the rafters of an indoor stadium. It's a gymnastics meet. Dan begins freaking out, giddy and giggling. Socrates hushes him and tells him the journey is real and to pay attention.
- Below them a scene unfolds: gymnasts perform, and the audience watches, thinking about the performances or getting distracted by other topics in their heads. Dan realizes he can hear everyone's thoughts. Soon the two disappear back into the gas station.
- But the old man immediately puts his hands back on the student's head, and Dan turns into the wind. He blows around the world, watching a shopper bargaining in Hong Kong, tourists in Germany playing volleyball, and much more, experiencing every emotion and circumstance.
- The strange experience concludes with a revelation: the world is full of people seeking distractions and escape from the problem of life and death, searching, bitter and confused, for meaning and the answers to the universe's mysteries. Reality never matches their dreams; they can never find happiness.
- And the source of it all, Dan sees, is the human mind.
- Socrates releases Dan, and the student is in tears, feeling there is no escape from the suffering of the human mind. Eep. The old man, on the other hand, is jovial. Dan asks him how he's been able to send him on these magic voyages. Socrates deflects the question, promising the student he'll experience a surprise when he awakes the next day.
- The following morning Dan finds himself surprised to wake his bed on February 22, 1952, his sixth birthday. A modified version of his life goes by in fast-forward. He graduates from college, marries Susie, has a disappointing gymnastics performance at the Olympiad, has a son, gets a life insurance job that takes up his time and leads to divorce, then finds himself looking in the mirror, decades older, wondering where his life has gone.
- The vision continues with Dan sitting in a rocking chair alone and lonely, crying and wondering what he could have done differently. He wonders if he missed something that would have made a real difference. He recites all his achievements aloud, but that doesn't stop his fear. Suddenly he has a heart attack and finds in death the only peace he's ever known. This is dark.
- Dan awakes to find himself back in his apartment, having slept through classes and gymnastics. Anxious about the dream, he rushes to the gas station to ask Socrates if the vision foretold his future.
- Socrates says it was probably the future he was headed for until they met, and might still be. The old man says the training is going to become more intense, and Dan will be tempted to give up. The student confidently says he can handle it.