“Hey! I want a word with you!” Professor Ranji was unable to run properly; one leg almost ran, and the other one trailed behind, looking stiff in his jogging pants, as if it had been taken off and put back on the wrong way. I recognized his Hindu cologne that had once enthralled me before he limped up to me, too close for my taste.

“I’m in a hurry. I have Honors Calculus in ten minutes.”

“You did it on purpose, didn’t you? The whole thing was premeditated, wasn’t it?! You don’t have to admit it to any goddamned juvenile court, but you’re going to have to admit it to me!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He shook me by my dress; synthetic hairs floated away, lightly, carelessly.

“What are you, some sort of witch? A Medusa?!” Veins rose out of his moist forehead. He had a plaster on the vein one draws bloods from, surrounded by the usual spectrum of a healing bruise.

“Without oxygen, your blood is blue,” I commented and began to walk.

“What the hell did you do with it?!” Panting obstinately, he struggled to keep up with me; every few feet, he scratched the same impolite part of himself. I noticed that the puma on his sweatshirt had a loose, hanging gold bead eye.

“I beg your pardon? With what?”

“The piece I’m missing! You know damn well!”

My hand covered my mouth instinctively, as though I were protecting myself from repossession of what was duly mine.

“You ate it? I can’t believe it! You ate it? I knew it. You ate it??” Professor Ranji squatted against a banyan tree and buried his face in his palms.

“Does she know?”

“Who?”

“You know damn well who! Was she behind the curtain, whispering stage directions to you?”

“By she, I assume you mean your wife, rather than your mother or daughter?”

“Tell me it was an accident, your elbow accidentally hit the knob, you didn’t know what you were doing, you’re very sorry, it was an accident, something, but don’t stand there looking at me like I’m the freak!”

I didn’t know if it would be suitable to weep like the heroine in a three-decker novel or to run.

“If you wish to alleviate your guilt for having merged your flesh with flesh other than your wife, confession is on Sunday,” I reminded him.

The face Professor Ranji made was so sincerely void of understanding, I conceived my mistake.

“Will, how you feeling?”

I was startled to discover Dr. Timberland standing behind me. My body tingled all over. I now knew it was just my brain having fun, tossing electricity here and there like grains to hungry chickens.

“Hello Stan,” murmured Professor Ranji.

Dr. Timberland gave his glasses a few puffs and wiped them on his jacket.

“You all right? I heard you were ill?”

“I’m fine, just fine, much better, this is nothing …” Professor Ranji confessed acidly. He started to peel the plaster off his arm, but halfway through changed his mind, and patted it back down uneasily.