Autumn in Philadelphia Trilogy

The Return: Game On

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme." -Mark Twain

Shawn desperately needed a distraction. Jon was immersed in looking over potential new curriculum for the following school year and was not available for any kind of conversation. The younger man glanced at the clock. It was after 2:30 and Julia had yet to make an appearance. Shawn checked his messages several times to make sure he hadn't missed anything from her. It concerned him that she was late considering what had happened the day before. He excused himself with the intent of giving Julia a call. Jon didn't so much as look up.

A call, it turned out was unnecessary. When he entered the outer office he saw his sister standing in front of the mysterious Peter Max poster. She was staring at it with a perplexed look on her face. Shawn stood beside her and watched her look at the unusual work of art. "Hey, sis. What are you doin'?"

"Does this look different to you?" Julia cocked her head to the side and frowned.

"Huh?" He avoided looking at the poster in all honesty. There was just something about it that bothered him greatly. But for Julia, he turned his attention to it, stared a moment, blinked, and then frowned. There was something different about it but he couldn't put his finger on what it was. They continued to stared at it growing more disturbed by the moment.

"Is it the color?" Julia asked. Her dark curls toppled over her shoulder as she tipped her head the other way.

Shawn squinted at the picture. "I don't think so."

"Maybe the lines around the drawings are thicker? Bolder?"

"Maybe." The writer took several steps back and studied it again. There was something off about it. "I just can't quite remember what it looked like before."

Julia whipped out her phone and googled the artist. "Here it is."

Shawn flicked through the image search result and his frown deepened. "These are all variations of the original. Probably due to the difference in printers and paper used. But none of them look exactly like this one."

"So weird."

"Yeah."

As he and Julia headed to Jon's office, the photographer in him screamed to turn around and take a photograph of the poster. It made no sense, but Shawn couldn't ignore his instincts. They had, after all, gotten him this far. When they left the office for home nearly three hours later, the poster in the outer office looked like just another variation of the images on Google. It looked exactly the way it had looked when it was first brought to the office.

Shawn exchanged a perplexed looked with his sister, but with Jon waiting at the door for him and Katherine bringing up the rear, he could not take a picture of the poster without an explanation. And an explanation he did not have.

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The next afternoon Jon had a series of meeting but they were, thankfully, all at the District Office, so Shawn and Julia settled into their corner and started working. While Julia did her homework, Shawn put the finishing touches on his first and last Hidden New York article. After submitting it, he leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and stretched. As he brought his arms back down to his side, he managed to hit the top of Julia's head with his elbow.