The first time he’d held this bad boy in his hands was a month back. Standing in his dressing gown early one Wednesday, belly full of pancakes and gawping at the box the postman was handing over. Back then he’d skidded on socks across the kitchen tiles and ripped that package apart. Ravished the damn thing. Flung polystyrene snow in giddy fountains around the breakfast bar as Wren and the kids rushed in behind him. He’d said two words in response. Looking at it now, the exact same phrase fluttered out over his breath.
‘Holy shit,’ he said. His first ever book. And not even an academic tome destined for student satchels and annual eBay cycles. No, this was being pitched as ‘popular sociology’. This was aimed at the masses. It’d be sitting in Waterstones alongside footballers’ biographies and erotic shenanigans.
He was about to laugh, but the sound quickly fizzled in his throat. Beth’s muffled voice had changed its tone. It was growing into that compère crescendo, cranking higher and higher, roughly in line with the beating of his heart. A boxing announcer, setting up the first round. He literally jumped when the double doors opened a crack, the furry seal parting like lips. One of his students popped his face through the gap, a black fringe flopping over his eye. ‘Professor?’
‘Flynn. Hi.’
‘You’re on,’ then a smile. ‘There’s quite a crowd in here.’ His face was sucked back into the door.
Matt stiffened and looked at his watch, alone for the final few seconds. A tick of memory made him check that the bottom button of his jacket was unfastened. Wren had told him this was the way of sophistication. He stooped and caught a final glimpse of the silver Stalin and had a sudden vivid picture in his mind. Of this same art student next year building an igloo from all the unsold copies of the icy Matt Hunter books that nobody ended up buying.
Focus.
He pushed through the doors and locked down the side hatches of his brain.
He could hear Wren’s voice in his head saying, just enjoy it, okay?
The lights hit him and it made him squint. At least he was professional enough not to cover his eyes and cower like a frightened deer. Beth was on the front row. She gave him a sharp, solid but noticeably unsmiling thumbs up.
Think Ted Talks; Think Ted Talks.
It wasn’t the biggest lecture hall in the world, but he could tell that it was pretty much full.
He hoped they’d remembered his water. He needed water. Like a hefty gulp from a bucket, right now.
He trotted up the stairs and the room filled with applause. Not the usual golf clap stuff from his classes. This sounded more like water rushing. He chose not to cartwheel, there were no arm flails, but he was sure his feet felt springier than they normally did. Then as he finally touched the podium his nerves did what they usually did. They dutifully slid back into the shadows and slinked off backstage. Replacing them, he felt a welcome shot of adrenalin kicking in. A goofy sense of fun.
A picture of his book suddenly flipped up on the huge screen behind him. ‘In Our Image: The Gods We Tend to Invent by Professor Matt Hunter’. He heard himself saying it again, ‘Holy shit.’ He was ninety-seven per cent sure that it was in his head and not out loud, but everybody laughed so he reversed those odds. Then he opened the book and the clapping rippled down from applause, to the familiar seal flapping, to silence. He saw Wren and his seven-year-old-daughter Amelia beaming up at him. Even his oldest, Lucy, looked semi-engaged. Quite the feat.
Remember this, Matt, his brain said. Log this moment.
Then he smiled at everybody and said, ‘Hi. It’s good to be here.’ He remembered thinking he sounded incredibly posh. A little too academic. But he ignored it.
He looked down, gently folded the spine open and started to read.
‘Don’t be fooled by my business card,’ Matt read. ‘I am not a doctor. Yes, I have a doctorate. Yes, the letters “D” and “r” are machine-etched into a plastic plaque on my office door, but obviously I’m not a doctor doctor. I study human belief not human biology (though in the coming pages you’ll be surprised at how often these two disciplines slide into one another). But seriously … if you slice straight through the knuckle of your little finger in a drunken lawnmower accident, I can pretty much guarantee you won’t be calling the good Dr Hunter to sort it out.’
A few chuckles came from the crowd.
‘Now on the other hand, if you see the blood squirting from your hand and you want to ponder its deeper meaning, then I’m your man. If you want me to chart Christianity’s obsession with blood symbology, for example, or explain why some naked Aborigines cover themselves in blood before they hit the dance floor, then by all means give me a call.’
His daughter Lucy laughed loudly at that, with her little Jack Russell yelp. He smirked.
‘But no … I’m not a proper doctor. And yet the journey you and I are about to take is, in many ways, a doctor’s journey. You see, I’m here to make a diagnosis for millions of people. And that, reader, includes you. Those fingers that turn and swipe these pages right now? They are attached to a body that is suffering from a bona-fide affliction. You’ll struggle to find medicine for it. There’s no quick cure. And … I’m afraid your test results are back, and I’m going to have to tell you straight. You are suffering from a disease known as … drum roll please … apophenia.
‘Okay, so it’s not the most well known of ailments. You’ve probably never seen a disease-of-the-week TV movie about it. Yet millions across the world have a terminal case of it. If you don’t recognise the name, then you’ll certainly be familiar with the symptoms
