Man at Gem Show Correctly Identifies Every Type of Chert, Cannot Identify His Own Emotions

Amateur knapper and lithic materials enthusiast Gordon Cortical attended the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show on Saturday, where he correctly identified nine varieties of chert, chalcedony, and jasper by sight and touch — and was subsequently unable to articulate why he has 'felt weird' about his brother's upcoming wedding for the past three months. 'That's Flint Ridge,' Cortical said, picking up a mottled gray-and-cream nodule without looking at the label. 'Devonian-era, central Ohio. See the banding pattern? That's alternating zones of chalcedonic and opaline silica. Beautiful material. Very predictable fracture.' When asked by a companion whether he was planning to attend his brother's wedding in April, Cortical paused for seventeen seconds before saying, 'I don't know. It's complicated. Is this Alibates flint? This is Alibates. Look at the color variation.' Companion and fellow knapper Elena Platform confirmed that Cortical's material identifications were uniformly correct. His emotional identifications were less precise. 'I asked him if he was happy for his brother and he said, "Define happy,"' Platform reported. 'Then he picked up a piece of Knife River flint and said, "This is what happy looks like," and I genuinely couldn't tell if he was being metaphorical.' Cortical's therapist, reached for comment, declined to discuss the case but noted generally that 'some individuals develop extraordinary perceptual sensitivity to specific domains while maintaining limited access to their own internal states. It's not uncommon in collectors.' Cortical left the gem show with $340 worth of raw knapping material and an unresolved relationship with his brother. 'The Alibates was a good purchase,' he said. 'The other thing — I'll figure it out. Maybe after I work through this new material.'