House of Numbers
“Something’s up,” Jill said a few weeks later. “I was on the SUNY campus Monday. The Professor is on some kind of mission.” She intuitively referred to his “sabbaticals,” four-to-five day stretches when he cancelled tutorials because of some murky business elsewhere.
“Where’d he go this time? On a hazardous and technically unexplainable journey to hobnob with his fellow wizards?”
“My best intelligence is he’s trying to save the Institute.”
“Save? From what?”
“Collapse?” She shrugged. “Think of all the fire code violations in this house.”
“That’s funny. I kind of thought this place would go on forever.”
Her snorting laugh. “Don’t be fooled by appearances. Our esteemed professor is constantly looking for ways to work with the SUNY folks. His position isn’t as solid as you think.”
Tony Van Witsen is a seven-year resident of Michigan and has been writing fiction for approximately fifteen years, specializing in short stories. In the summer of 2001 he enrolled in the MFA program in fiction at Vermont College and received his degree in January 2004. His published stories and essays have appeared in a range of journals including Spellbinder, Ray’s Road Review, Crosstimbers, Identity Theory and Valparaiso Fiction Review. Tony recommends Becky Tuch's Substack.
