The Man who Died By the Numbers

      Isaac Simov was a terror in his math class. He was upset about being

    assigned the dullards this semester- " future factory hands and breeders

    of the race ", he thought of them.

        A few days ago he made fun of Roberta's superstitious habit of bunking

    school every Friday 13th ." I'll prove to her what bad luck it is by

    flunking her instead of giving her a generous D- ", he  announced

    sardonically.

        The next day he sat stone faced reading of Roberta's death in a

    bizarre  row boat accident in Roger Williams Park. Her boyfriend Clyde,

    one of his more promising students, was being questioned by police.

        Isaac began to change in subtle ways  after that tragedy. He  always

    thought of himself as an old Pythagorean who believed that NUMBER rules

    the universe. He began to use  various mathematical mysteries to calculate

    the exact day of his own death.

          He converted his age into a decimal fraction  which represented

    his age to the  very  month, day, and hour. It was 66.666.   Every night

    at midnight   he averaged the ages of everybody whose death notice had

    appeared that day in the local newspaper. He dreaded the day he would

    read : 66.666 - correct to three decimal points on the calculator screen.

         One night he read 66.59

        The next night Isaac read : 66.60 . In subsequent nights he read :

    66.61, 66.62, 66,63, 66.64, 66.65.

        On A  Thursday 12th it read 66.665 . Isaac had severe palpitations

    of the heart and dialed 911. He was taken to St. Jude emergency center

    and released with a supply of nitro-glycerin.

         His daughter Robin took him home and decided to stay by his side.

    She was the apple of his eye. But he knew he was doomed anyway. His NUMBER

    would come up soon.

        At midnight he did the macabre arithmetic. The number was now fatal:

    66.666. He died -with a moment's agony- saying just audibly to his

    daughter: " Oh my beautiful brain, my beautiful brain - NEVER MORE ! "