All for His Dream

By Jeong Ah Lee Ph.D.

This is a story about a young man named Taeho who has lost himself in the process of pursuing a dream. He refuses to let anything stand in his way or hold him back. Nothingnot the comfort of his familys home, not his planets strict caste system or the success he has in his work-a-day lifecan stop him from becoming a spaceship captain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 9, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543464948

Jeong Ah Lee Ph.D.

Jeong Ah Lee is a professor in the English Department of Sungkyul University. She received her Ph.D. from Indiana University and has several academic publications focused on teaching English as a second language. “All for his dream” is the first fictional work from Jeong Ah Lee.

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All for His Dream

Jeong Ah Lee, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2017 by Jeong Ah Lee, Ph.D..

ISBN:    Softcover     978-1-5434-6495-5

              eBook          978-1-5434-6494-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/09/2017

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Contents

Who are we?

Taeho Looks up

On Galactron, look down

10 years before Taeho was born, his parents weren’t his parents yet

A New Dream

Taeho’s birth

Robot dog, helper dog

School on Galactron

Taeho at school

Lonely life?

Taeho graduates.

Next Chapter

Fueling feud

Life smooths out

Smooth until it is not

Who do we owe for this?

Home coming

New old life

Taeho’s crisis

New content

Build your dream

Progress is good?

To grasp or to appreciate?

How we come together

Who are we?

The sound of his transponder woke him up. All alone on a spaceship. A familiar voice. But who is it? And how did he get here?

The voice on the transponder comes in clear, Dad, I sure do miss you. I would give anything to hear your voice one last time.

The young man had found peace in his nightly calls out into space to the father he lost. He flipped off his mic on the radio in his family garage. No response tonight. No response ever again.

Taeho drowsily responded, "You called me Taeho. You called me dad. Who am I? Who is Taeho? Who are you?"

The young man hailed back, ""Taeho!?! Dad, is that you!?!" This is your son Dennis. Oh goodness, no! Maybe the meld didn’t process properly. But this still is a miracle!

Wait the meld, what? A miracle?

I don’t know where to start.

I think I know I’m Taeho but I feel disconnected. Fuzzy. I just woke up but if feels like I was… Funny thing… I feels like I was just born…

Taeho Looks up

Please start at the beginning. How did I end up on this spaceship? How did I become a spaceship captain? Marooned in outer space.

Well, you’re not exactly marooned. But the story of Taeho. Oh, we all know that story. That’s THE story of the family.

About thirty years ago, Taeho leaned on his mop handle, sighed and took a good look up at the stars. For the first time he said it out loud, loud enough for other people to hear him, One day I’ll be the first one to visit each and every one of you.

Taeho’s mom and dad noticed their young boy lost in a daze and the two proud parents shared a chuckle. Taeho’s dad issued a rebuke and said, That’s enough of dreaming, space cadet. Mind your mop and let’s get the last aisles clean so we can make our way home.

Emboldened by his first outward admission of having a dream, Taeho looked at his dad and said, You’ll see. Someday, I’ll be the first to jettison Galactron and explore every corner of space.

Living and dying on Galactron, permanently stuck in the janitor class, was not Taeho’s intention. No matter what the rules are, no matter what the cost, Taeho knew what he wanted to be a spaceship captain. He didn’t know how to do it but he was confident, if he had the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, then the how would find him. His mom often cautioned him about the cost he might have to pay if he grasps for a dream, instead of letting it flow naturally into his life. But he knew what he wanted and couldn’t wait and hope some luck or chance would bring his hopes and desires to fruition.

On Galactron,

look down

So I was always on a path to be a spaceship captain?

No, not on Galactron.

Wait, what’s Galactron?

The seed of Taeho’s dream to become a spaceship captain and explore the universe could not have been planted on a more inopportune place than his home planet of Galactron.

Located on the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, Galactron is one of only a few planets with intelligent life in the known universe. However, the planet is a good proof for the universal rule that recognizes intelligence and liberal choice are not synonymous.

On Galactron, astronomical science is well advanced and it is common knowledge amongst the planet’s people that there are other civilizations in the universe with intelligent life however, there are strict laws on the planet that enforce rules discourage interaction amongst different people which have the unfortunate side of effect of discouraging the people of Galactron from reaching out to other intelligent life forms in the universe.

Galactron has a strict cast society. The planet’s history books show that after the death and suffering of the colonial war of four hundred years ago, the population voted nearly unanimously to segregate the population along racial and social lines. For centuries the people of Galactron have only been allowed to marry within their social class. Although there are obvious drawbacks to such a system, it has led to a population of highly specialized people. Not only do people marry within their class, it is also the norm to marry a partner whose family works within the same industry as your family. Janitors become janitors and marry into a family with a long lineage of janitorial history. Athletes become athletes and marry athletes. And so on and so forth.

The deep layers of specialized and proprietary knowledge held by families has made many things on the planet obsolete. Voting for instance is no longer necessary on Galactron. Members of the political class have metrics that qualify or disqualify them from positions. Laws and rules are either adopted or thrown out based on systems that rely on specialized political data and expert analysis that ensures the planet lives in relative harmony.

The last truly controversial law to be passed on Galactron was the law that made marriage a process where two separate families form an economic enterprise or corporation, rather than a religious union. Each couple unites their trade to become a small