Radical Ron mini-horror story : " The Man Who Died by the Numbers "

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 ! "