Elona Dee

Mankind is continually increasing in mental ability; modern man is more intelligent than Neanderthal man. And at any given time mankind can be divided into those of low, average, and high mental ability. Those of average ability are perfectly suited for their time, while those of low ability in the present would have been of average and even high ability in a former time. Therefore, those of high ability in the present time would be equal to those of average ability in some future time.

In this way she thought of herself as an average citizen from a future time on a visit to the people and places of the 1980's. Ha, just look at the buildings and these people's speech and dress. She hadn't decided, though, whether she had been transported back to this present, a previous time, or if these objects and people were perfectly reconstructed copies of a former age that she was experiencing in her present future time.

She drifted through the door of the classroom with her normal suppleness, and when she was in her seat by the window, she instantly became perfectly comfortable. When you looked at Elona, you could see her wrapped in almost a visible contemplation. The professor had begun his lecture.

This was a Philosophy of Religion class, and he was talking about some monk in the Middle Ages who had teleported himself to Rome. She had heard the story before, though, and resumed her musing. She looked around for evidence to help her decide if the objects were real or reconstituted.

On her desk someone had printed heavily in pen, "666 THE GREAT BEAST." Underneath it was written lightly in pencil, "Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids."

She caught a phrase of the professor's. He had said something about "ultimate demise." Her brother Ellis was a lot like her and she liked him, but he was just too morbid. Like his story last night.

They were sitting in the living room, their faces illuminated by the pale blue light of the TV, and during the commercials he was telling her about a project of his.

First he went to an auto wrecking company, a car graveyard. He chose at random 50 cars and wrote down their odometer readings. For example, that red Plymouth over there with the broken back window. It had 76,223.9 miles total. That means it was 76 years old and a few months when its engine gave out for the last time. That's how he thought of it. Very few cars got into their 90's.

And, too, there were the tragedies, the 27- and 31-year-olds - like that yellow Fiat there. He tabulated, then with his calculator found the average age of the 50 cars.

Next he went to a cemetery. All this on a Monday no less. He chose 50 tombstones, found the age of the deceased at the time of death, and then found an average age. But the reason Ellis was telling Elona all this was because the odometer on his Opel was broken and wouldn't go beyond 47,392.6. It would be 47 years old forever but he was still driving the car. It occurred to him that that could mean only one thing. The car was a zombie! Almost breathlessly he added, "Think I'll paint it black." That Ellis Dee was just too morbid.

The class was interrupted for a minute by the sound of a siren. She looked out the window but couldn't see anything. It was the strangest thing about sirens in this city. Every time you hear a siren, you hear car horns accompanying it. She normally imagined intricate traffic jams with the red fire engine stuck at a busy intersection. Today, though, she thought of her childhood in the country and the sparrows that accompanied every flight of a crow.

The professor was talking about Zen Buddhism. She was picturing a Buddhist monk in a flowing yellow robe sitting in the lotus position on a white cushion. His beatific smile went perfectly with the scarlet rose in his left hand.

Sitting directly in front of him on a rough oak bench was a burly man in a lumberman's shirt. He looked like he made his living outdoors. His grin went well with his callused hands. They were looking at each other.

The monk said to the outdoorsman, "Allow me to ask you a question." He nodded his head. The monk paused a moment, then said, "What is the sound of one hand clapping?"

The outdoorsman leaned back a little on his bench and eyed the monk. Then he looked a little puzzled. "Uh…" Then he said in a booming voice, "By God, you got me there, buddy!" And he slapped his knee hard with his right hand and gave out a resounding belly laugh.

She looked around and saw people's backs as they moved through the doorway. An uneven mixture of voices replaced that of the professor. Now she was walking down the gray sidewalk. She heard a voice beside her say, "Well, Elona, tell me, what did you think of the class?" To her right was a bench under a rough-barked tree. Pointed yellow leaves covered half the bench, and she thought that maybe the leaves could help her decide if she was in the past or present. But, the leaves were flawless in their random imperfections.

She said, "Yes. Oh! I almost forgot. I have to get bread and milk on the way home."