The Humans

Published in Great Britain in 2013 by Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE www.canongate.tv This digital edition first published in 2013 by Canongate Books Copyright © Matt Haig, 2013 The moral right of the author has been asserted Quotation taken from interview with J. G. Ballard, © 2003, J. G. Ballard, used by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Ltd. Lyrics from ‘This Must Be The Place’ by David Byrne courtesy Index Music Inc. Extract from ‘That it will never come again’ by Emily Dickinson reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Bellknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Michael Franti quotation reproduced by kind permission of Guerilla Management Collective. Extract from Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace reproduced by kind permission of the Hill Nadell Literary Agency. Extract from The End of the Affair by Graham Greene (Random House) reproduced by permission of David Higham Associates. Extract from Music of the Primes by Marcus du Sautoy reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd © 2004 Marcus du Sautoy. Extract from Contact by Carl Sagan copyright © 1985 Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc. formerly known as Carl Sagan Productions, Inc. Reprinted with permission of Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc. This material cannot be further circulated without written permission of Druyan-Sagan Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library ISBN 978 0 85786 875 6 Export ISBN 978 0 85786 876 3 eISBN 978 0 85786 877 0 Typeset in Minion by Palimpsest Book Production Ltd, Falkirk, Stirlingshire To Andrea, Lucas and Pearl I have just got a new theory of eternity. – Albert Einstein Contents Preface (An illogical hope in the face of overwhelming adversity) PART I I took my power in my hand The man I was not Detached nouns and other early trials for the language-learner Texaco Corpus Christi Human clothes Questions Coffee Mad people The cubic root of 912,673 Dead cows The world as will and representation Amnesia 4 Campion Row The war and money show A stranger Starting the sequence Primes A moment of sheer terror The distribution of prime numbers Glory Dark matter Emily Dickinson Dishwasher A large house Daniel Russell The pain Egypt Where we are from The dog and the music Grigori Perelman Crunchy wholenut peanut butter Isobel’s dance The mother PART II I held a jewel in my fingers Sleepwalking I was a wasn’t Wider than the sky A few seconds of silence over breakfast Life/death/football Light-bulb Shopping The Zeta Function The problem with equations The violet The possibility of pain Sloping roofs (and other ways to deal with the rain) The thing with feathers Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens In-between Two weeks in the Dordogne and a box of dominoes Social networking Forever is composed of nows Violence The taste of her skin The rhythm of life Teenagers Australian wine The watcher How to see for ever The intruder Perfect time A king of infinite space The art of letting go Neuroadaptive activity Platykurtic distribution The Hat and Feathers The ideal castle Somewhere else Places beyond logic PART III The wounded deer leaps the highest An encounter with Winston Churchill The replacement A game 90.2 MHz The ultimate crime The nature of reality A face as shocked as the moon The second type of gravity Advice for a human A very brief hug The melancholy beauty of the setting sun When galaxies collide Home A note, and some acknowledgements Preface (An illogical hope in the face of overwhelming adversity) I know that some of you reading this ar