# Professor Micheals — Short Fiction character guide

> Professor Micheals in Short Fiction by Robert Sheckley.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Micheals

**First appearance:** 0000-final-examination

## Snapshot

An overworked anthropology professor whose sacred week of doing nothing is ruined by a gray-black object in his ditch that eats spades, dirt, and sunlight.

## Who they are

Micheals guards his ten-year custom of a week of absolute rest at his New York State farm, until his hired man Conners shows him a truck-tire-sized thing that sheared two inches off a spade. Prodding it with scientific calm, he watches dirt, stone, and steel vanish without heat or recoil, and decides to phone the college for a physics man. His methodical curiosity turns a lawn nuisance into the story's central menace, a leech that feeds on everything and grows.

## In the story

### [The Leech](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/chapters/the-leech)

Discovers the leech in a ditch during his resting week; attempts to study it and later advises General O'Donnell.

## Links

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- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_48_se/characters