Time and the Riddle: Thirty-One Zen Stories by Howard Fast

said.
    That night Herbert Cook was awakened by the droning beat of the helicopters. He got up, went into the bathroom, and looked at his watch. It was just past three o’clock in the morning. When he returned to bed, Abigail was awake, and she asked him:
    â€œWhat’s that?”
    â€œIt sounds like a helicopter.”
    â€œIt sounds like a hundred helicopters.”
    â€œOnly because it’s so still.”
    A few minutes later she whispered, “My God, why doesn’t it stop?”
    Herbert closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
    â€œWhy doesn’t it stop? Herb, why doesn’t it stop?”
    â€œIt will. Why don’t you try to sleep? It’s some army exercise. It’s nothing to worry about.”
    â€œThey sound like they’re on top of us.”
    â€œTry to sleep, Abby.”
    Time passed, and presently the sound of the helicopters receded into the distance, faded, and then ceased. The silence was complete—enormous silence. Herbert Cooke lay in bed an listened to the silence.
    â€œHerb?”
    â€œI thought you were asleep.”
    â€œI can’t sleep. I’m afraid.”
    â€œThere’s nothing to be afraid of.”
    â€œI was trying to remember how big the universe is.”
    â€œTo what end, Abby?”
    â€œDo you remember that book I read by Sir James Jean, the astronomer? I think he said the universe is two hundred million light-years from end to end—”
    Herbert listened to the silence.
    â€œHow big are we, Herb?” she asked plaintively. “How big are we?”

7
Show Cause
    U nderstandably, it was couched in modern terms; in the United States, on the three great networks in radio and in television, in England on BBC, and in each country according to its most effective wavelength. The millions and millions of people who went burrowing into their Bibles found a reasonable facsimile in Exodus 32,9 and 10: “And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people and behold, it is a stiff-necked people: now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them.”
    The radio and television pronouncement said simply, “You must show cause why the people of Earth shall not be destroyed.” And the signature was equally simple and direct: “I am the Lord your God.”
    The announcement was made once a day, at eleven A.M. in New York City, ten o’clock in Chicago, seven in Honolulu, two in the morning in Tokyo, midnight in Bangkok, and so forth around the globe. The voice was deep, resonant, and in the language of whatever people listened to it, and the signal was of such intensity that it preempted whatever program happened to be on the air at the moment.
    The first reaction was inevitable and predictable. The Russians lashed out at the United States, holding that since the United States, by their lights, had committed every sin in the book in the name of God, they would hardly stop short at fouling up radio and television transmission. The United States blamed the Chinese, and the Chinese blamed the Vatican. The Arabs blamed the Jews, and the French blamed Billy Graham, and the English blamed the Russians, and the Vatican held its peace and began a series of discreet inquiries.
    The first two weeks of the daily pronouncement were almost entirely devoted to accusation: Every group, body, organization, sect, nation that had access to power was accused, while the radio engineers labored to find the source of the signal. The accusations gradually perished in the worldwide newspaper, television, and radio debate on the subject, and the source of the signal was not found. The public discussions during those first two weeks are a matter of public record; the private ones are not, which makes the following excerpts of some historical interest:
    THE KREMLIN
    REZNOV: “I am not a radio engineer. Comrade Grinowski is a radio engineer. If I were Comrade Grinowski, I would go back