The Senior Common Room was unusually quiet.
Not because there was nothing to discuss.
But because, after several weeks of discussing language, everyone had become suspicious of speaking.
Mr Blottisham broke the silence.
"I have decided to stop using metaphors."
Professor Quillibrace looked up from his tea.
"I wish you every success."
"Thank you."
"I expect the attempt will last approximately three minutes."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Why three?"
"Because he has already begun."
Blottisham frowned.
"I haven't."
Professor Quillibrace closed his book.
"You said you had decided."
"Yes."
"As though thoughts were places at which one arrives."
Blottisham blinked.
"Oh."
"And you intend to stop."
"Yes."
"As though conversation were movement."
Another pause.
"Oh."
Miss Stray laughed.
"It appears the experiment is proving educational."
Professor Quillibrace walked slowly to the blackboard.
He wrote:
SEEING WITHOUT METAPHORS
"There."
He stepped back.
"Our ambition."
Blottisham nodded.
"Exactly."
Professor Quillibrace looked at the words.
"What is seeing?"
"A metaphor?"
"Indeed."
"And what is without?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"Another one?"
"We imagine stepping outside something."
"And metaphors?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"We have managed to smuggle three metaphors into the title before the discussion has properly begun."
Miss Stray looked delighted.
"So even the question is metaphorical."
"Precisely."
The room fell silent.
Professor Quillibrace erased the board.
Then wrote a single sentence.
THE DESIRE TO ESCAPE A FRAMEWORK IS ITSELF A FRAMEWORK.
Nobody spoke.
After a while, Blottisham raised a hand.
"That seems unfair."
"In what way?"
"If every attempt to escape metaphors uses metaphors..."
"Yes?"
"...haven't we lost before we started?"
Professor Quillibrace considered.
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because the goal was mistaken."
Miss Stray leaned forward.
"Perhaps we have imagined thought as a room."
"So?"
"We then imagine leaving the room."
"Yes."
"But perhaps thinking is not something that happens inside a room at all."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"A remarkably appropriate observation."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So we do not escape metaphors."
"No."
"What do we do?"
"We notice them."
"And then?"
"We compare them."
"And then?"
"We ask what each one makes possible."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Exactly."
The discussion drifted for a while.
The fire settled into a quiet rhythm.
Rain tapped gently against the windows.
Finally Miss Stray spoke.
"I wonder whether we have been thinking about metaphors in the wrong way."
Professor Quillibrace looked interested.
"Go on."
"We have spoken as though metaphors were things."
"Yes."
"But perhaps they are more like invitations."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"Invitations?"
"They invite us to see one thing in terms of another."
Professor Quillibrace remained silent.
"They do not force us."
"No."
"They suggest."
"They illuminate."
"They organise."
"They make some questions easier to ask."
"And others?"
"They quietly persuade us not to ask."
The room was still.
Professor Quillibrace stood and wrote four words.
OPENING
CLOSING
OPENING
CLOSING
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"What does that mean?"
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"Do you remember the World Cup?"
Miss Stray smiled too.
"And chess."
"And Scrabble."
Blottisham laughed.
"The game where every move opens some possibilities and closes others."
"Exactly."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"So does every metaphor."
The room became very quiet.
Miss Stray looked at the blackboard.
"So every metaphor is a move."
Professor Quillibrace slowly put down the chalk.
"I believe..."
he said quietly,
"...that may be the most important thing we have discovered."
Blottisham looked surprised.
"More important than whether a metaphor is true?"
"Much more."
"Why?"
"Because metaphors are not merely descriptions."
"What are they?"
"They are ways of proceeding."
"Ways of thinking."
"Ways of questioning."
"Ways of noticing."
"Ways of overlooking."
Miss Stray looked thoughtfully into her teacup.
"So understanding is less like finding the correct map..."
"And more like learning which map to unfold."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"And when to fold it away."
The college clock struck five.
Outside, evening had settled over the quadrangle.
Students walked beneath ancient stone arches.
Some hurried.
Some wandered.
Some argued.
Some laughed.
Each inhabited the same college.
Yet each walked through a different world of meanings.
Blottisham gathered his notebook.
"I think I finally understand."
Professor Quillibrace looked gently sceptical.
"Only finally?"
Blottisham smiled.
"I understand that understanding is never final."
There was a pause.
Professor Quillibrace looked almost disappointed.
"That," he said,
"is regrettably well put."
Miss Stray laughed.
"And what shall we do now?"
she asked.
Professor Quillibrace looked around the room.
At the books.
The portraits.
The centuries of accumulated conversation.
Then he looked at the blackboard.
He erased everything.
Everything except one sentence.
EVERY WAY OF SEEING IS ALSO A WAY OF NOT SEEING.
The three stood in silence.
After a long moment, Blottisham spoke.
"So the task is not to find the perfect metaphor."
"No."
"Nor to escape metaphors."
"No."
"Then what?"
Professor Quillibrace picked up his coat.
He paused at the door.
"The task, my dear Blottisham..."
"...is to remain capable of wondering whether another metaphor might reveal another possibility."
The light was switched off.
The Senior Common Room disappeared into the evening.
The blackboard remained unseen in the darkness.
Its final sentence no longer visible.
Yet somehow still present.
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