By: Noel Williams

6.9

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Radix came flying into the building, alarmed at how late he really was and certain someone must have noticed. He was thinking: if his job was no longer there, he had no one else to blame but himself. The world was in upheaval; the Soviet Union, that centuries old citadel of orthodoxy, was crumbling; the event was sending ripples across the globe; the first ripple had already touched the shoreline of his soul—back to school, start of a new year, and he was late. Very late.

He tripped on the last concrete stair leading to the front door and went tumbling into the surprised arms of two security guards who held him and shook with laughter, as if they'd been waiting for just that sort of distraction. Radix looked back at the offending stair; he thanked the guards. They were young (and not so young) men and women who'd been given a second chance; often overzealous with male students, overfriendly with female students, they were wearing spiffy new outfits for the start of the new year to go with the bulky arrest paraphernalia around their waists.

Amazingly his time card was still in the OUT slot, as were many others. This was after all the first day back.

His first stop, given his late arrival, had to be at his department office. It was empty; the hallways had a strange deserted look; everybody was convening somewhere—but where?

Then Mrs. Schnupp came into the office, her fist full of duplicating carbon. She gave a bright hello to Radix, but there was on her face a vacant disoriented look.

"I hope the copying machine is working. Do you know if it's working?" she asked offhand, not waiting for an answer.

"You're in a great hurry to get started!"

"I like to get myself ready before the flood races through."

As she said this Mrs. Schnupp switched on the copying machine; it whirred and clattered, its green copying light came on indicating it was ready to churn out copies. Mrs. Schnupp watched the whole start-up process with a kind of nervous skepticism.

"Where is everybody?" Radix asked. He'd been reading the notices on the department board, looking for clues to the day's agenda.

"Department meetings…discussing the bad news." Mrs. Schnupp said, not looking up.

"What bad news?"

"Haven't you heard . . . weren't you at the faculty meeting?" Her face tightened into a grimace. The copy machine needed paper, and here was someone she barely knew talking as if he'd just come off a subway car from Mars.

"I missed the meeting. I just came in. What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on…It's the beginning of the end…the school's been taken over…they've only got short paper, I need long paper, where do they keep the long paper?

"Taken over?"

"That's what I said…taken over…The writing was always on the wall . . . I guess, I'll have to use short paper…Yes, it has come down to this, as they say."

Radix, who didn't know her very well, decided he'd had enough of her distracted manner, enough of the clattering copy machine.

"I think I'd better find the department meeting."

"Started awhile ago . . . in Rm. 352," Mrs. Schnupp said, stuffing paper in the tray, too self-absorbed to explain why she wasn't at the meeting.