The Scientist Short Stories

If April is the cruelest month, thought the scientist as he got ready for his morning jog, then September is the saddest. In Maine, anyway. For, if April’s cruelty comes from the foreknowledge that its pastel promise will end ere long in stark brown blight and white frost, September’s sadness comes from the announcement: “Sorry, mate. This year is the same as any other."

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The scientist was walking home, after dark on a spring evening, a Monday. This walking business had become routine with him. Awhile ago, he might have wondered how come he had so little company, the price of gasoline being what it was in Berkeley, California. And of parking, if you could find a spot. But though his colleagues complained at every opportunity, and cursed the governments that they blamed for the prices and the scarcities, they always got out of their cars in the morning and back into them at quitting time. There was always some excuse. So he punched the Walk buttons at the intersections and watched while the cars stormed past until they recognized that there was a red light in their way and they halted with bad grace to let the pedestrian pass, and he had stopped wondering about it all.

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