Thermometer

Her left knee was a working thermometer. This was a unique skill among the people she'd met, as far as she knew. People didn't often parade around with their bare knees showing – not in this climate. It told temperature in Celsius. The knee wasn't visibly unusual, but when she tapped it a certain way, it screeched like a 56k dial-up internet modem, and it spoke in a cold, monotone voice. For example, “11.3 Celsius.”

The knee's voice was masculine. This probably didn't make a difference, but it was a detail she'd noticed. She would have preferred a feminine knee-voice, given the choice, but if asked would not be able to explain why.

Was her knee connected to the internet? That would explain this somewhat, but she couldn't recall having consented to an installation procedure at any point. Her knee had been this way as far back as she could remember. Perhaps it was one of those things her parents had decided on when she was small – like when people microchip their pets so they don't run away. And yet, she was not going to phone her parents to ask directly. It seemed rude, somehow. If the knee were connected to the internet, the bill would have to be paid, and she'd never paid such a bill – at least not one clearly marked “knee internet”. Thus, if this theory were true, presumably her parents had been paying the bill all along. This instilled in her a guilt which, at the moment, outweighed her immediate thirst for the truth.

In the age of smartphones and ubiquitous interconnectivity, her knee had grown less and less impressive. Obsolete, even. But she liked to think that her knee's temperature readings were more accurate and meaningful than a quick Google search, though she had no factual basis for believing this. Perhaps it was the way in which the information exuded from her own body – a substance, like saliva – that made her trust it intuitively. After all, who can you trust more than yourself?

“11.4 Celsius,” said the knee.

See? she thought. I never would have looked that up – not after hearing the last reading only minutes ago – but now, here it is, a change of 0.1 degrees, a knowledge that I would have gone without knowing. A useful knowledge. For example, she thought, I imagine there are specific types of potted plants, or vegetables, which can only grow at very specific temperatures. 0.1 of a degree off and maybe the whole thing just dies. But not for me. I'd know right away if—or if not—I should plant it. Not that I do any gardening. Hate it, actually. But I bet this is useful knowledge for something else – something I haven't even thought of yet.

Missed Connections

To the man in the checked shirt on the 7.50pm Edinburgh to Helensburgh train on Tuesday 19 July 2016 —

You were a younger me. I'd like to warn you to watch your step when you leave the train at Partick station, so you can avoid tripping over, bashing your knee, spilling the contents of your bag all over the platform, and making an idiot of yourself.

However, I am aware that this letter cannot in fact travel back in time, so this advice will be, has been and continues to be useless. Instead I offer you an apology for my powerlessness in this situation, and my unwavering support for all your future endeavours.

Sincerely,

Concerned Stranger

The Man Who Cried Gasoline

The man who cried gasoline was useless as a fuel source. Lining up his tear ducts to the fuel cap of a car was difficult in itself. He only produced pitiful amounts of gasoline, not enough to run a car – a lawnmower at best – and even then he'd need to be manipulated into experiencing a sadness of enough severity to warrant tears. Difficult, as he was quite a stoic man and did not like to show emotions in public.

He could not smoke a cigarette, for obvious reasons.

He suffered from a rare form of eczema around his eyes and cheeks, due to his skin being irritated by corrosive liquids over long periods of time.

The man was uniquely attractive to men and women who enjoyed the scent of petrol. They stopped him in the street, transfixed, but he was reluctant to give out his phone number. He preferred to spend his time alone, to escape the constant worry that someone might light a cigarette near his face before he had time to warn them.

He secured a job at fish-gutting facility, to disguise his unique scent. It worked well, and on a good day he would manage to go without speaking to another living soul, or even coming within five metres of anyone.

He refused to use a gas cooker if it could be avoided, and ate most of his food raw. This included a lot of raw fish, which he got cheap—or stole—from work. He did not like to chop onions, either, preferring to prevent himself spilling gasoline tears in the kitchen.

The man mostly watched happy movies, but did not enjoy them. However, he had been brave enough to watch the Pixar film Up—at home, not the cinema—but held a plastic bucket in front of him for the duration. He sometimes sold the gasoline harvested from his eyes, and the amount he made from Up paid not just for the DVD but also some expensive sushi ingredients – seaweed-paper and soy sauce. That month he watched the movie over and over.

But before long he was in a deep depression and nauseous from all the sushi. After vomiting fish for the third time in a single night, he snapped the DVD in half. This made him feel worse.

The man who cried gasoline did not love his life but did his best to tolerate it – and tolerate it as joyfully as possible. The less he wept, the better. To this end, he tried a number of different hobbies. Acting didn't work. Neither did boxing. Online journalism, however, proved surprisingly helpful. He wrote a series of scathing reviews of restaurants he'd never been to, and to which he'd never go.

For the most part, he never cried again.

Buffering

I was always buffering, pausing mid-sentence to collect my thoughts, while the listener stood waiting, bored. Sometimes mid-word. Family and friends stood politely as I froze and tried to remember the next thing to say. No matter how many times they clicked “play”, I was always buffering. They might wonder why they bothered to wait, when they could so easily find someone else to talk to – someone with the same information I had, or better. Some did just that. Some left me buffering, went off to do something else, then returned to see if I'd moved or changed. Was I ready to talk? Sometimes still no, so they'd leave again and later return for a second time – but not for a few days, or weeks, or maybe never.

I was always buffering. I still am, sometimes. I wasn't fully fixed. They sent someone round for repairs – to ask me a few questions. They turned me off and on again, and then I was better than before, or at least not worse.

But still, to this day, sometimes a person asks me a question and I say, “Give me a sec...” and they know I'm up to no good. Or, more accurately, no good is up with me. Good is not what I am. I keep them waiting and most of them leave.

But some friends and family—out of loyalty, obligation or wilful ignorance—stick around and wait for me to respond. As if it doesn't bother them that I'm always buffering, or doesn't bother them enough to forget that they care about me.

This Is Why We Can't Halve Nice Things

This is why we can't halve nice things.

We shared fairly. Sometimes this worked: half a cake; half an hour; half a house. But sometimes we could not agree how to split something down the middle, half-and-half: half a relationship; half a thought; half an idea; half an accident; half an experience. Some things lost all value when cut in half — a double bed, a dog or a computer, for example. The half-bed fell over; the half-dog was dead; the half-computer did nothing at all. Neither dog nor computer responded to commands. The bed had never responded to commands.

We learned that we could need a new system of halving things – a dissection beyond bisection. A system of time-sharing would work. Having a whole dog for half an hour each was fine; having half a dog for a whole hour was strange and upsetting.

The time did not even need to be divided, we found, as long as each sharer was willing to tolerate the other's presence. With the bed, this was fine. We simply lay on the bed at the same time, unimpeded.

But with the computer, we found we could not use it properly at the same time. Two half-computers hadn't worked either. We settled on purchasing a second computer, sharing two computers in half as one computer each. We could have had two half-computers each instead, but I suspected that this would work just as poorly as one half-computer apiece. It turns out that once something is halved its value can disappear. One half-computer is as good as no computer. I would rather have no dog than have half a dog.

We could have got a second dog, sharing the two in the same way – one each – but decided that half-ownership of one whole dog was less of a burden than whole ownership of one whole dog, or, for that matter, each having whole ownership of two half-dogs: four half-dogs total.

And don't get me started on how to halve a heart. Or, conversely, do get me started – I don't know where to start. At first glance we appear to have one whole heart each, the way we have one computer each, but it's a little more complicated than that.

With a half-computer, you can possibly salvage parts for reuse – or parts of parts. But once you've halved a heart, good luck trying to put it back together again.