Professor Quillibrace was halfway through annotating a seventeenth-century treatise when Mr Blottisham entered carrying a photograph album.
"Professor," he announced cheerfully, "I have discovered myself."
Quillibrace lowered his spectacles.
"I had not realised you were missing."
"Oh, I was."
Blottisham opened the album.
"I found this."
He pointed triumphantly at a faded photograph of a baby wrapped in an improbable quantity of knitted wool.
"There I am."
Quillibrace examined it.
"A charming infant."
"Exactly."
Blottisham beamed.
"So that's me."
Quillibrace looked at him thoughtfully.
"Is it?"
Miss Stray looked up from her book.
"Do you remember that day?"
"Certainly not."
"So how do you know it's you?"
"My mother wrote my name on the back."
"I see."
"So the matter is settled."
Quillibrace smiled faintly.
"I wonder."
Blottisham frowned.
"Professor, are you suggesting I wasn't myself?"
"I'm asking what you mean by yourself."
"The obvious thing."
"There is rarely an obvious thing."
Blottisham considered the photograph again.
"It has my face."
"A rather smaller version."
"It has my ears."
"Fortunately."
"It became me."
"Indeed."
"So it must already have been me."
Quillibrace folded his hands.
"My dear Blottisham, every oak tree was once an acorn."
"Yes."
"But one would hesitate to describe the acorn as a particularly thoughtful oak."
Miss Stray smiled over her teacup.
"Suppose we ask a different question."
Blottisham nodded eagerly.
"What did that baby know about himself?"
Blottisham looked at the photograph.
"Very little."
"What did he think about his future?"
"I imagine lunch."
"What regrets did he carry?"
"I suspect none."
"What explanation did he have for his behaviour?"
"None at all."
Miss Stray closed her book.
"And yet..."
"...he was certainly conscious."
A thoughtful silence settled over the room.
Blottisham eventually spoke.
"So consciousness came before..."
He searched for the words.
"...before all the stories."
Quillibrace nodded.
"Precisely."
"But then where did the stories come from?"
Miss Stray leaned back.
"Have you ever noticed how children describe their feelings?"
"They usually cry."
"Yes."
"And later?"
"They say they're cross."
"And later still?"
"They say they're disappointed."
"Or embarrassed."
"Or anxious."
"Or frustrated."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"They learn more words."
"They do."
"And with more words..."
Another pause.
"...they begin noticing more differences."
Quillibrace smiled.
"My dear Blottisham, have you ever mistaken irritation for exhaustion?"
Blottisham laughed.
"Frequently."
"And later realised they were not the same?"
"Yes."
"What changed?"
"I calmed down."
"Anything else?"
Blottisham hesitated.
"I suppose..."
"...I found better words."
Miss Stray nodded gently.
"And perhaps the better words allowed you to notice what had been there all along."
Blottisham sat very still.
"I always thought language described feelings."
"So do many people."
"But perhaps..."
He looked from one to the other.
"...it also helps us discover which feeling we're actually having."
Neither replied immediately.
The rain had stopped.
Sunlight fell across the old carpets of the Common Room.
Blottisham stared thoughtfully into his tea.
"I've been saying I was angry."
"Yes."
"But sometimes I was disappointed."
"Yes."
"And sometimes ashamed."
"Yes."
"And sometimes frightened."
Quillibrace nodded.
"The experience may begin before the words."
"But the words help organise the experience."
Blottisham suddenly brightened.
"Professor!"
Quillibrace looked cautiously alert.
"I've solved identity."
"Oh?"
"We're simply the stories we tell ourselves."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Aren't you leaving something out?"
"What?"
"The person who tells them."
Blottisham froze.
"Oh."
Quillibrace allowed himself the smallest smile.
"The stories matter."
"They do."
"But someone must already exist to begin telling them."
Blottisham looked relieved.
"So I wasn't created by language."
"No."
"But language helped me become..."
He searched for a phrase.
"...more completely myself."
Quillibrace inclined his head.
"A reasonable way of putting it."
Blottisham looked back at the baby photograph.
"So that little fellow already inhabited a world."
"He did."
"He already knew hunger."
"Yes."
"And comfort."
"Yes."
"And fear."
"Yes."
"But he couldn't yet think..."
Another pause.
"...'I wonder why I'm afraid.'"
Miss Stray laughed softly.
"No."
"He simply was."
The three sat quietly for a while.
Eventually Blottisham spoke again.
"Perhaps becoming a person isn't a single event."
Neither answered.
He continued.
"Perhaps first there's a world that matters."
Quillibrace nodded.
"Then there's someone living in it."
Miss Stray smiled.
"And then?"
Blottisham looked out of the window.
"...then, one day..."
"...the someone begins wondering who the someone is."
Quillibrace slowly closed his notebook.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"I believe you have just distinguished consciousness from reflection."
Blottisham looked delighted.
"Have I?"
"You have."
"And they're different?"
"Profoundly."
As the college bell announced the hour, Miss Stray gathered her papers.
"It seems to me," she said, "that we often imagine consciousness beginning when we can talk about ourselves."
Blottisham nodded.
"But perhaps that's only the moment consciousness discovers it has a mirror."
Quillibrace smiled.
"A beautiful metaphor."
Blottisham looked puzzled.
"So what was consciousness doing before it found the mirror?"
Quillibrace stood and looked out across the college gardens, where a robin had landed on the stone sundial.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"It was busy inhabiting the world."
The robin tilted its head, apparently uninterested in theories of higher-order consciousness.
It had, after all, worms to consider.
And for the moment, that was quite enough.
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