The Petty Details of So-And-So's Life Read Free

definitely changed from that day on, though. She’d long ceased imagining him as a lover, but an architect missing a third dimension was really pushing the limits of shared reality.
    What Oliver didn’t confide was that in place of the third, he’d discovered an altogether different dimension. Fair enough, he’d never be able to design buildings according to other people’s conceptions of space any more, but his new sight brought him the remarkable ability to see things lurking in places where other people didn’t see them. A gift. Superior insight, he congratulated himself with a smug grin.
    â€œElaine, my real talents were wasted there,” he declared when he woke up after his six-week nap.
    â€œReally,” she droned sarcastically. “And how might they be more meaningfully employed?”
    â€œAs an inventor,” he said.
    â€œYou’re not serious.”
    â€œDamn right, I am.”
    â€œAnd what, exactly, are you planning on
inventing
?”
    â€œDon’t worry, Elaine. You always worry. There’s divinity in these hands,” he said, raising his palms in front of her face. “I’ll let them guide me.”
    â€œDid you suddenly get religion, or something?”
    â€œJust a little perspective,” he said.
    She sighed. “Will you do me one favour?”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œSee a vocational counsellor.”
    â€œWhat on earth for?” he barked.
    She winced. “If you really are entertaining a career change, it might be helpful to talk to someone about it.”
    â€œBut I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’ve found my calling.”
    â€œJust this one favour, Oliver—could you do me this one favour? I promise I’ll respect whatever decision you make after that.”
    He stared at her blankly.
    â€œFor me?” she pleaded.
    â€œAll right,” he conceded. “But my mind’s made up.”
    â€œAll right,” she sighed, diffusing what she knew could have otherwise mushroomed into something large and toxic. She was relieved that he was simply out of bed.
    The vocational counsellor quickly dispatched Oliver for a psychological assessment. He spent what he said was a useless hour and a half staring at ink blots, but was pleasantly surprised by the report sent by the psychologist the following week. It was full of words:
superior IQ, delusional, overinflated sense of self-worth, self-aggrandizing
, and
paranoid tendencies
. The report offered more of a career-related prognosis than definitive clinical diagnosis: Oliver Taylor was an employer’s worst nightmare.
    â€œIt simply means I’m of much more use on the planet when I’m marching to the beat of my own drum,” he said proudly, taping the assessment to the fridge. He repeatedly punched it with a firm finger, demanding each member of his family acknowledge the scientific proof of his superior intelligence. He’d stopped reading the report after
superior IQ
, completely failing to register that the words that followedwere suggestive of dubious character and unstable mental health. Oliver Taylor was thirty years old and had just received the last pay-cheque of his life.
    Elaine had always known Oliver was
different
, and that was precisely why she had married him. Her path down that slippery slope toward him had begun in 1967, when she was at the zenith of her adolescent life as an angry young woman. As the end of her senior year approached, it became obvious she wasn’t going to be asked to the prom at her Boston high school. Since this was a stigma akin to having leprosy, her parents decided to intervene in the hope of preventing her from being banished to some remote colony where she would spend the rest of her days losing bits of her body and soul.
    They weren’t sure if she even had a soul, though. She had what they termed “socialist leanings,” a tendency which was so thoroughly offensive to