Liam Perrin's Blog, page 6
July 20, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 55
He preferred to think about things apophatically – to assert what isn’t true rather than what is: It’s not a bad idea; She’s not a terrible oboist; I’m not having that for lunch.
It allowed him to participate in group decision-making without having to shoulder the burden of actually making decisions.
But that was just a bonus. He had a way of getting to the heart of a thing by treating the truth like a cat. If you wanted it to befriend you, he would say, it was important not to come straight...
July 17, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 54
“Some notes,” he said unfolding a scrap of paper, “on the neuroscience of free will.”
He unfolded another, dropping more. “Hypothetical explanations for the Fermi paradox.”
He continued, “Moser’s worm, the moving sofa, Hilbert’s ninth, Molyneux…” He frowned. “No. I think we’ve answered that one.”
She squinted. He noticed.
“It’s going to happen – the spontaneous temporary savant event,” he said.
“Like… an epiphany.”
He snorted. “No. An epiphany is just your consciousness catching up. Drink som...
July 13, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 53
Things went unusually well for his friends. He couldn’t tell them why. When he was a child his exasperated mother had sent him to his room with these words: “…and I wish you would stop telling people that you’re a genie!” So he had stuck a cork in it and lived a quiet life of carefully circumscribed kindnesses.
July 10, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 52
“Everyone puts their pants on one leg at a time,” someone had said. It got him thinking. He decided there were two ways to go. He could not wear pants, but he was certain a desperate celebrity would soon think of this. Or he could put his pants on both legs at once.
He practiced. He became very good. He didn’t tell a soul.
Whenever someone asserted something couldn’t be done he would nod and smile. The secret knowledge that he was unique provided great comfort.
It was happening now, and he al...
July 6, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 51
The electric cart whizzed down the tarmac. She waited until they passed the noisy hangar where they build the Friday ships then glanced at him. He was staring at his paper-cut fingers.
Placards identified passing buildings: Day Owls. Peripatetic Cows. Northbound Coyotes. Right-handed Herons. Crows. Magpies. Black Cats.
He slumped. He didn’t want to be seen by the other handlers – not while they were cleaning up his mess. All those dead albatrosses…
She stopped at a dilapidated out-building. “...
July 3, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 50
She halted her patrol in loping mid-stride. A thin object had been slipped through the slot in the exterior door. Everyone knew that mailmen were extinct, but her database insisted the object on the floor was a sleeve of wood pulp which would contain a folded sheet of the same material on which she would find markings transcribed in arrangements intended to convey meaning.
Intriguing as it was, automated billing had depleted the account supporting her premium routines some time ago. She had n...
June 29, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 49
He put his finger on the paragraph. “It says here that Sir Gawain died at noon on the 10th of May after he was struck once again where he’d been wounded by Lancelot previously. His body was interred at Dover Castle where visitors could see his skull and the evidence of the wound thereupon.”
“Well, that proves it,” she said.
“What? That he existed?”
She shook her head. “That getting up before noon is bad for your health.”
June 26, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 48
He read the brochure aloud while she browsed.
“To outsiders people seem inexcusably happy on Disproportionate Island. Like us, the Disproportionates are easily incensed by small provocations, but here even meager courtesies evoke jubilant delight. The visitor accustomed to a more misanthropic worldview inevitably perceives the Disproportionates as philosophically askew.
“The Disproportionates call themselves the Gundawdahaypay – the comparatively-proportional – and call outsiders the Bumbadud...
June 22, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 47
He had a window in his room when he was small. He could see across a valley stitched with streets and buttoned with houses. He liked to listen to lawn mowers, smell the freshly cut grass, and stare at a distant hill with trees like broccoli.
He was too young to know some homes are happy and some aren’t. He knew something ached when he looked at that hill. He was moved from that house, but the ache endured.
He returned years later and was taken up the hill. It was part of a hospital campus. Th...
June 19, 2017
The Curiously Stunted, Incomprehensibly Disjointed, Perfectly Inadequate Adventures of Nicholas Cornelius Holloway – Episode 46
The troop – minus one – waited at the rendez-vous point. The ogre was always late.
The goblin poked at a hole in the dirt with a stick.
The orc shifted his pack and stepped once more through his mental checklist. Meat. Check. Floss. Check. Tent. Check.
There was a sound of crashing trees, and Mumbles the Ogre burst into the clearing. His momentum carried him too far forward. As he reeled back there was an enormous clatter very much like an entire household of goods being slid around and bange...
