solitude
Retreated from the world and found something there.
The Man Who Fed His Foot to Worms
What do you do when worms keep falling out of the ulcer on your foot, fifty feet above the ground, and you've been standing on a pillar for thirty-seven years?
The Man Who Kept the Schedule
What do you find when you open a grave that belonged to a man who never stopped walking?
Matsuo Bashō
What does a man who spent four years managing pipes hear when a frog hits a pond?
The Viking of Sixth Avenue
What happens when a blind composer in a Viking helmet stands on the same Manhattan corner for thirty years and becomes more famous silent than playing?
The Man Who Only Seemed Dead
Every night for years, Hans Christian Andersen left a note on his bedside table that read: "I only appear to be dead."
The Man Who Could Not Swim
He crossed every ocean alone and considered learning to swim entirely pointless.
The Man Who Found a Taste for Digging
When the council rehoused him on the top floor of a tower block, it was specifically to discourage tunnelling.
The Woman Who Wrote From Inside a Wall
A bishop sealed her inside a stone room, and she stayed for forty years — then T.S. Eliot quoted her during the Blitz.
The Duke Who Went Underground
He built the largest ballroom in England and used it to roller-skate alone.
The Man Who Weighed the Earth and Hid From His Housekeeper
He measured the density of the entire Earth. When he saw his housekeeper on the stairs, he built a second staircase.
The Man Who Loved a Pigeon
Nikola Tesla loved a pigeon as a man loves a woman. When she died, he said his life's work was finished.