Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories by Howard Fast

it.”
    â€œWell, not really. But I do have a dozen students who are very dear to me. I don’t know whether that’s worth giving up such an enormous increase.”
    â€œTimmey,” she said, “we are not starving.”
    â€œNo—” He reached out and touched her cheek. “Do you know how long it is since you call me Timmey?”
    â€œIs it that long?”
    â€œI can get two more years out of my Volkswagen. We could turn in the Pinto and get you one of those big Chevies, what with the rebate and all that.”
    â€œA gas guzzler? Not on your life. I am perfectly content with the Pinto. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about cars. Look how the light strikes the cactus now. I never realized how beautiful they are.”
    â€œPeople don’t, because they are strange and different. We’re so afraid of anything different.”
    â€œCome to bed,” she said suddenly.
    â€œIt’s only nine o’clock.”
    â€œCome to bed.”
    â€œShall we do the dishes first?”
    â€œThe hell with the dishes,” Barbara said. “Come to bed.”
    Barbara was asleep when the professor awakened in the morning. He lay there for a while, watching her. No doubt about it, she was quite as attractive as the day they met, and he reflected upon the singular joy of sex between two people who were without rancor, without selfishness, without frustration and very much in love.
    He got out of bed quietly and dressed without awakening his wife, and then he went out to wish a good morning to Echinomastus contentii , who had survived the night quite well, and whose lovely petals glistened with a drop or two of the morning dew.
    The cat joined him, rubbing contentedly against his leg, which prompted the professor to say, “Cat, there are more things in heaven and earth than I have ever dreamt of, which is hardly original but very much to the point. What are we going to do about it? I really don’t approve of people who interfere, and here I’ve interfered with three of us.”
    Then he sighed, climbed into his aged Volkswagen, and drove to the college.
    Since he had skipped breakfast at home, he went first to the faculty dining room, and joined two of his colleagues. One of them was Professor Roscoe Martin, widely known as dean of the P.O.D. Society, P.O.D meaning “prophets of doom,” who stood by his flat statement—on television talk shows as well as in scholarly magazines—that mankind would not be around in 1985, considering the rate at which we were destroying the environment. The other was Professor Hallis Grundy, business administration, corporate management, etc. They waved to Melrick, and he sat down at their table and ordered his orange juice, eggs, and toast, and then smiled with pleasure for their company.
    â€œYou are disgustingly content,” Grundy said. “You sit down with two of the nastiest malcontents on this miserable faculty, who are even more ridden with dissatisfaction and jealousy than our average unattractive colleague, and you act as though you were convening a caucus of saints. That’s a stinking attitude.”
    â€œI agree,” said Martin.
    â€œWell, it is a lovely day,” Melrick said.
    â€œDid you notice the smog or didn’t you?” Martin snapped at him. “It’s lying against the mountains like a stinking yellow blanket. By the day after tomorrow, we’ll have the worst reading in the history of Los Angeles County. In L.A. County alone, this week should bring us 83.14 smog-associated deaths.”
    â€œIs the point-one-four a child?” Melrick asked mildly.
    â€œImarvel at people like you,” Grundy said to Melrick. “Here we are in one of the worst depressions in history, runaway inflation, more business failures per week than ever in history, and you smile.”
    â€œNot to mention,” Martin added quickly, “the pollution of the sea. That’s the