"There are three men on a train. One of them is an economist and one of them is a logician and one of them is a mathematician. And they have just crossed the border into Scotland (I don't know why they are going to Scotland) and they see a brown cow standing in a field from the window of the train (and the cow is standing parallel to the train).

  And the economist says, 'Look, the cows in Scotland are brown.'

  And the logician says, 'No. There are cows is Scotland of which one, at least, is brown.'

  And the mathematician says, 'No. There is at least one cow in Scotland, of which one side appears to be brown.'

  And it is funny because economists are not real scientists, and because logicians think more clearly, but mathematicians are best.

  And when I am in a new place, because I see everything, it is like when a computer is doing too many things at the same time and the central processor unit is blocked up and there isn't any space left to think about other things. And when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is even harder because people are not like cows and flowers and grass and they can talk to you and do things that you don't expect, so you have to notice everything that is in the place, and also you have to notice things that might happen as well. And sometines, when I am in a new place and there are lots of people there it is like a computer crashing and I have to close my eyes and put my hands over my ears and groan, which is like pressing CTRL + ALT + DEL and shutting down programs and turning the computer off and rebooting so that I can remember what I am doing and where I am meant to be going.

  And that is why I am good at chess and maths and logic, because most people are almost blind and they don't see most things and there is lots of spare capacity in their heads and it is filled with things which aren't connected and are silly, like, 'I'm worried that I might have left the gas cooker on.'"

Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, 2004

    

     Illustrated by Sashi Dammekens