FENN'S IN MEDIA'S RACE

SUSAN AND BILL
A KOAN OF DISCOVERY

Susan and Bill were from somewhere else.

I mean really somewhere else. Therefore it should come as no surprise that, in their wanderings, they should happen upon the Universe.

"Dude," said Susan,"will you look at this. Ever see anything so huge."

"No. It's unbelievable. It's gigantic, girl!" replied Bill.

You see these two had the ability to see the whole Universe ... end to infinite end, by merely turning their heads from side to side.

"I don't ever remember seeing so much nothing gathered together in one place before in my life!"

"Yeah. Just pure empty."

Susan, being somewhat older, was the prime mover of the team. She suggested, "Let's zoom ourselves in and wander about a bit."

It must be said that these two ... being from nowhere ... had the ability to zoom themselves down and into the smallest part of anything they saw. It could best be described as the power to see the forest, as well as the smallest tree ... or even the tiniest molecule of a leaf ... by merely "zooming" themselves in or out. Neat, huh?

So it came to pass that they spent a day or so zooming around the Universe at speeds which made the speed of light look like the 21A bus traveling in a blizzard-bound rush hour.

"Susan, check out that dust over there. Let's have a look."

"Man, it's a whole mess of little galaxies and stuff. Check 'em out!"

They spent a few days puttering about the galaxies, getting increasingly bored by the planets and stars and all that. They did get a boot out of the black holes.

"Tripin'. Look how them little mothers suck up the light and stuff!" said Bill.

Susan had been zooming in on one galaxy when she happened on one tiny planet.

"Look here. Look on this little planet here. There's millions of these little thingies scurrying around like fools."

"All right! At least we found something happening around here. They are cute, Susan. Zoom in over here and check 'em out!"

"They got round things on their shoulders with holes in that never stop making funny sounds. Hey, what you doing, man."

"Susan ... zoom inside this little fella's shoulder ball. Check this, this is awesome."

Susan zoomed in on one of the heads.

"Oh, yeah. Your talking about the gray guk in this bone dome, huh?"

"Right."

"Incredible. Look what's going on in here. These dudes are imagining all sorts of stuff. That gray guk is full of ideas thoughts and concepts and inventions and feelings and every damn thing all at once."

Well, needless to say, Susan and Bill spent days just checking out the gray guk in the bone domes.

At length Susan concluded, "Bill, boy, this is the most amazing thing we've found in this whole God forsaken Universe of Nothing."

"You got that right, Susan."

Well, all those scurrying little beings have millions of jobs. They make houses, they drive cabs, they pass papers around their desks, they write and perform plays, play baseball, run for office ... millions of things. But the fact is that the only folks who work exclusively with the gray guk ... both their gray guk and the gray guk of their students, are teachers.

Now, folks, what is the best job in the Universe? Ask Susan and Bill. -- John Fenn