Part 29

Mr Kurt Cutlery was fascinated by the case before him. As Ryan continued his mantra, 'I have vital evidence concerning the black hole information paradox,' the German physicist attempted to prise more details from the transfixed prole.

'What exactly is this evidence?' he asked for the third time.

Again, Ryan would not swerve from his new favourite sentence: 'I have vital evidence concerning the black hole information paradox.'

Kurt pondered significantly to consider a different line of inquiry. Perhaps, he thought, the chap has been overcome by the unstoppable force of an overwhelming overload of information escaping from some internal black hole within his mind. Kurt had always believed that, rather than being composed of point like particles, the universe actually consisted of minute vibrating strings, thus negating the idea that no information is allowed into a black hole. Somehow, he conjectured, this person standing before him had become the human equivalent of a black hole and was either about to spontaneously spout some quantum physical truths relating to the second law of thermodynamics or had seriously malfunctioned to the point where he was now able to impart the information which Stephen Hawking and others previously thought impossible. Either that or he was a nutter.

'Can you elucidate?' asked Kurt, almost shouting.

Whitney, still aghast at the transformation in her man, spoke up: 'You leave my Ryan alone. He's no hallucinatin' at aw. He's aff the eckies and aw that shite. He's clean.'

'I beg your pardon, madam,' said Kurt. 'I was merely trying to extract more information…'

'Aye, well enough of yer extractin'. He's done nuthin' wrang. It's ma bairn who's trommitised.' She pointed at the hapless Shadney who sat dumbfounded within the buggy in a world of her own glaikitness.

Kurt pondered the creature for a second, convinced it was some monstrous hybrid related in some way to both homosapiens and poultry.

Suddenly, Ryan snapped out of his trance and, extending his lower jaw as far as it could go without extending wider like a snake's, yelled directly at Kurt, almost covering his face with his mouth:

'Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!'

The occupants of the Leith police station reception area to a man, woman and child, all but lifted two inches off the ground. Across the other side of the world, a butterfly refrained from flapping its wings, reckoning this momentous disturbance in the planet's equilibrium was enough for one afternoon.

Recovering quickly from the sheer blast of halitosis accompanying the gust which actually blew strands of his hair back, Kurt peered fascinated into Ryan's cavernous orifice, dripping baccy brown saliva from the tartar encrusted stalactites that constituted his crooked, rotting teeth. A slight scent of sick also hung in the mix - the after effect of one White Lightning too many the night before.

'What appears to be the trouble?' spluttered out the physicist whilst heroically controlling his gagging reflex.

'My head's itchy,' said Ryan.

Kurt paused for a while, thinking of offering the obvious advice to scratch it, before Ryan added:

'Inside.'

Next week: Love Me Tendrils