The Button in the Grass

There was a button in the grass.

It was a small brown button with four holes in it.

It had been there since Tuesday.

On Tuesday, a woman had hung some washing on the line.

One of the shirts had been missing a button.

She had noticed this when she took the shirt off.

She had searched the grass.

She had searched beneath the clothesline.

She had searched around the basket.

But she had not found the button.

So she had gone inside.

The button stayed in the grass.

On Wednesday, it rained.

The button became muddy.

On Thursday, the sun came out.

The mud dried.

On Friday, a snail passed over it.

The button did not move.

On Saturday morning, a boy came into the garden.

He was looking for a marble.

He had lost it somewhere near the fence.

He looked under the bushes.

He looked behind the watering can.

He looked beneath the garden chair.

He did not find the marble.

But he found the button.

He picked it up.

“What's this?”

He rubbed it against his sleeve.

The button became cleaner.

He put it in his pocket.

Then he forgot about it.

That afternoon, the boy's mother was sitting beneath the tree.

She was sewing.

The boy came and sat beside her.

“What are you making?”

“A pocket.”

“For what?”

“For your jacket.”

He took the button from his pocket.

She looked at it.

“Oh,” she said.

She held it between her fingers.

“I know this button.”

The boy looked at her.

“It came off my blue shirt.”

She turned the button over.

There was a little thread still caught in one of the holes.

“I couldn't find it.”

The boy looked towards the grass.

“You found it?”

“I found it,” he said.

She smiled.

“Thank you.”

Then she put the button on the table beside her sewing.

The boy went to look for his marble again.

He found it beneath the garden chair.

The next morning, the woman sat beneath the tree with the blue shirt.

She took out the needle.

She threaded it.

She held the shirt in one hand and the button in the other.

For a moment she looked at them.

Then she sewed the button back on.

The shirt looked almost exactly as it had before.

The woman put it on.

She went outside.

The boy was playing near the fence.

He looked at the shirt.

“That's my button.”

The woman looked down.

“Yes.”

The button was where it had always been meant to be.

Or perhaps it was simply where it was now.

The boy ran off to find his marble.

The woman hung the washing on the line.

The shirt moved gently in the breeze.

The button held on.

And in the grass beneath the clothesline, there was nothing to find.

The Door That Was Open — A Senior Common Room Discussion

“I believe I have solved the door.”

Professor Quillibrace looked up from his newspaper.

“You have solved a door?”

“The door in the story.”

Miss Stray looked across the room.

“The one that was open?”

“Precisely.”

Quillibrace folded the newspaper.

“I had hoped it would remain unsolved.”

“The door is clearly a metaphor.”

“For what?”

“Possibility.”

Stray smiled.

“Of course.”

“The door is normally closed. Then it is found open. People hesitate. Someone goes in. Others follow. Eventually the room becomes occupied, and the door remains open.”

“Yes,” said Stray.

“Therefore the door represents the emergence of possibility from constraint.”

Quillibrace nodded.

“A respectable beginning.”

Blottisham looked pleased.

“Thank you.”

“I wasn't complimenting you.”

“I shall take it as one.”

Stray picked up her tea.

“But why was the door closed?”

“Because it was closed.”

“Yes, but why?”

Blottisham hesitated.

“That is irrelevant.”

“Is it?”

“Obviously. The important thing is that it becomes open.”

“But if the story never tells us why it was closed, how do we know that the opening represents possibility rather than, say, ventilation?”

Blottisham looked at her.

“Ventilation?”

“Yes.”

Quillibrace nodded.

“An underappreciated philosophical force.”

Blottisham ignored him.

“The inhabitants of the story respond to the open door.”

“Do they?” said Stray.

“Yes.”

“They respond to the room.”

“Because the door is open.”

“Perhaps.”

“Not ‘perhaps’.”

“Why?”

“Because the story says so.”

“No,” said Stray. “It says the door is open. It doesn't tell us why the people enter.”

Blottisham frowned.

“They discover the room.”

“Yes.”

“And then they use it.”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So perhaps the important event isn't that the door opens.”

Blottisham waited.

“It is that people begin to use what becomes available.”

Quillibrace smiled.

“That sounds suspiciously like an interpretation.”

Stray looked at him.

“It is.”

“Good.”

Blottisham leaned forward.

“Then I was right.”

“No.”

“But you just—”

“I said it was an interpretation.”

“Which means it is the meaning.”

Quillibrace sighed.

“Blottisham, if interpretation were identical with meaning, we could close the university.”

Blottisham looked genuinely puzzled.

“But then what are we doing here?”

Quillibrace looked around the room.

“I have often wondered.”

There was a pause.

Blottisham glanced towards the door.

It was open.

He stared at it.

Stray noticed.

“You've never noticed that before?”

“Of course I have.”

“You just looked surprised.”

“I was considering its semiotic significance.”

Quillibrace followed his gaze.

“It's been open all morning.”

“Why?”

“I don't know.”

“Who opened it?”

“I don't know.”

“Why hasn't anyone closed it?”

“No one has needed to.”

Blottisham stood up.

He walked towards the door.

He touched the handle.

Then he looked back.

“You realise this is exactly like the story.”

Quillibrace returned to his newspaper.

“No.”

“No?”

“This is the Senior Common Room.”

Blottisham looked at Stray.

“What's the difference?”

She thought for a moment.

“In the story, people discovered a room.”

“And here?”

“We're already in one.”

Blottisham considered this.

Then he looked at the open doorway again.

“But perhaps,” he said slowly, “the story has been happening here all along.”

Quillibrace looked over his newspaper.

“That would be unfortunate.”

“Why?”

“Because then we'd have to interpret ourselves.”

Stray smiled.

“Perhaps we already have.”

The three of them looked at the open door.

Nobody closed it.

The Door That Was Open

There was a door at the end of a hallway.

It was usually closed.

Nobody thought much about this.

When the door was closed, people walked past it.

When the door was open, people walked through it.

This seemed perfectly sensible.

One morning, the door was open.

Nobody had opened it.

A woman walking down the hallway stopped.

She looked at the door.

Then she looked at the room beyond it.

There was nothing unusual in the room.

There was a chair.

There was a window.

There was a little table with a plant on it.

The woman walked through the doorway.

She stood in the room for a moment.

Then she walked back into the hallway.

She closed the door.

The next morning, the door was open again.

The woman stopped.

She looked at it.

She closed it.

She walked away.

The following morning, it was open again.

This time she left it alone.

After a while, other people began to notice.

Some closed it.

Some walked through.

Some stood in the doorway and looked into the room.

One man said, “I thought that door was supposed to be closed.”

Nobody knew whether it was.

A little boy came along.

He pushed the door until it was almost shut.

Then he pushed it again.

It opened.

He pushed it shut.

It opened again.

He laughed.

He pushed it harder.

The door stayed closed.

The boy walked away.

A few minutes later, the door was open.

Nobody had seen it move.

By lunchtime, people had stopped trying to decide what to do about it.

The door was open.

So they left it open.

People began to use the room.

Someone brought in a chair.

Someone else brought in a book.

The plant on the little table was watered.

In the afternoon, the woman who had first found the door open returned.

She stood in the doorway.

The room looked different.

Not because anything had changed.

There was still a chair.

There was still a window.

There was still the little table with the plant on it.

But now there were people inside.

The woman stepped in.

She sat down.

Someone gave her the book.

She read for a while.

When she finished, she put the book on the table.

Then she got up and walked out.

As she reached the hallway, she turned around.

The door was still open.

She almost closed it.

Then she didn't.

That evening, everyone went home.

The hallway became quiet.

The room was empty.

The door remained open.

During the night, a moth flew through it.

It circled the lamp.

Then it flew back into the hallway.

In the morning, the door was still open.

Nobody was surprised.

And after a while, nobody could remember exactly why it had once been closed.

The Sock on the Fence — A Senior Common Room Discussion

“I have been thinking about the sock.”

Professor Quillibrace looked over the top of his newspaper.

“That sounds ominous.”

“The sock on the fence.”

“I know which sock you mean.”

“Good.”

Miss Stray was arranging biscuits on a plate.

“What have you discovered?”

“The underlying meaning.”

Quillibrace sighed.

Stray looked interested.

Blottisham leaned forward.

“The sock is displaced.”

“Yes,” said Stray.

“It is separated from its proper pair.”

“Yes.”

“It is discovered by a beetle.”

“No,” said Stray. “The beetle discovers the sock.”

Blottisham frowned.

“An important distinction.”

“Apparently.”

“The spider then encounters it.”

“Yes.”

“And the magpie moves it.”

“Yes.”

“Therefore the sock passes through a series of relations.”

Quillibrace folded his newspaper.

“Does it?”

“It is moved from one context to another.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“It is, in this case.”

“Why?”

“Because that is what happens.”

Quillibrace looked at Stray.

“I'm beginning to fear he may have stumbled upon the narrative.”

Stray smiled.

“But the sock doesn't seem to change.”

“Ah!” said Blottisham.

He pointed at her.

“Exactly.”

“The sock remains a sock.”

“Which proves my thesis.”

“What thesis?”

“That identity persists through relational transformation.”

Quillibrace stared at him.

“The sock falls into grass.”

“Yes.”

“It gets rained on.”

“Yes.”

“A magpie moves it.”

“Yes.”

“A girl finds it.”

“Yes.”

“She takes it home.”

“Yes.”

“She washes it.”

“Yes.”

“And eventually it is reunited with its other sock.”

“Yes.”

“Therefore—”

“Therefore,” said Quillibrace, “someone lost a sock.”

Blottisham stopped.

Stray laughed.

“That is unnecessarily reductive.”

“It is also entirely accurate.”

“But surely the story is asking us to think about displacement.”

“Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

Blottisham looked at the page.

“In the fence.”

“No.”

“In the sock.”

“No.”

“In the narrative structure.”

Quillibrace waited.

Blottisham frowned.

“In the reader.”

“That is a dangerous place to put it.”

Stray sat down.

“I think the interesting thing is that nothing particularly interesting happens.”

Blottisham looked offended.

“Excuse me?”

“The sock is lost.”

“Yes.”

“It is found.”

“Yes.”

“It is moved around.”

“Yes.”

“It is reunited with its pair.”

“Yes.”

“And that's about it.”

Blottisham shook his head.

“No. There must be more.”

“Why?”

“Because we are discussing it.”

Quillibrace nodded.

“A devastating argument.”

Stray looked at Blottisham.

“Perhaps the story is simply about a sock.”

Blottisham stared at her.

“That cannot be the case.”

“Why not?”

“Because then why would anyone write it?”

Quillibrace returned to his newspaper.

“An excellent question.”

Blottisham stood up.

“I refuse to believe that an author would devote several hundred words to a sock without concealing something beneath the surface.”

“Perhaps,” said Stray, “the author was watching a sock.”

“Why?”

“Because it was there.”

Blottisham looked genuinely troubled.

“So there is no deeper meaning?”

Quillibrace glanced over the newspaper.

“There may be.”

Blottisham brightened.

“What is it?”

“I don't know.”

“Professor!”

“I merely said there may be one.”

“But how can we know?”

“We can't.”

Blottisham sat down again.

Stray pushed the plate of biscuits towards him.

“Have one.”

He took a biscuit.

They sat quietly for a moment.

Then Blottisham said:

“I still think the sock represents something.”

Quillibrace nodded.

“Probably laundry.”

Stray laughed.

And for once, nobody tried to stop him.

The Sock on the Fence

There was a sock on a fence.

It was a blue sock.

It had white stripes around the top, although one of the stripes had faded almost completely.

Nobody knew how it had got there.

The sock did not know either.

It remembered being in a washing machine.

It remembered being wet.

It remembered being warm.

After that, things became rather confused.

Now it was on a fence.

The wind blew.

The sock flapped.

A magpie landed beside it.

The sock flapped again.

The magpie looked at it.

The sock looked, as much as a sock can look, at the magpie.

The magpie flew away.

The wind blew harder.

The sock slipped over the top of the fence.

It hung there for a while.

Then it fell into the grass.

Nobody noticed.

A beetle crawled over it.

A small spider walked across one of the white stripes.

The sock lay quietly in the afternoon sun.

Later, it began to rain.

The sock became wet.

It did not mind.

It had been wet before.

The rain stopped.

The sun came out.

The sock dried.

A little girl came into the garden.

She was carrying a bucket.

She saw the sock.

She picked it up.

“That's funny,” she said.

She put it on the fence.

Then she went to fill her bucket.

The sock stayed where she had put it.

A while later, the magpie returned.

It landed on the fence.

It looked at the sock.

Then it took hold of the faded white stripe with its beak.

The sock came away from the fence.

The magpie carried it across the garden.

It dropped the sock beside a tree.

Then it flew away.

The little girl came back.

She saw the empty fence.

She looked around.

She found the sock beside the tree.

“Why are you over here?”

She picked it up.

This time she carried it inside.

The sock was put into a basket.

There were other socks in the basket.

Some were blue.

Some were black.

One was yellow.

The sock recognised none of them.

But it was glad to be somewhere warm.

That evening, the little girl found its other sock under the bed.

She put the two socks together.

The next morning, they went into the washing machine.

The sock remembered being wet.

It remembered being warm.

It remembered the sound of the water.

When the washing machine stopped, the little girl took the socks outside.

She hung them on the line.

The wind blew.

The two socks moved together.

For a little while, they looked almost like birds.

Then the little girl came back with the basket.

She took them down.

And nobody ever put that sock on the fence again.

The Bell That Rang When Nobody Was Listening — A Senior Common Room Discussion

“I have discovered the significance of the bell.”

Professor Quillibrace continued reading.

Miss Stray looked up from her tea.

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

“That's unfortunate,” said Quillibrace.

Blottisham ignored him.

“The bell rings.”

“Yes.”

“The fox hears it.”

“Yes.”

“The fox stops.”

“Yes.”

“And therefore the bell communicates.”

Stray tilted her head.

“To the fox?”

“Obviously.”

“But sometimes the bell rings when the fox isn't there.”

Blottisham waved this away.

“An irrelevant technicality.”

Quillibrace lowered the newspaper.

“An interesting definition of irrelevance.”

“The essential point,” said Blottisham, “is that the bell possesses meaning because it produces a response.”

Stray looked thoughtful.

“Does it?”

“The fox stops.”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“So perhaps the fox stops because it hears a bell.”

“Exactly.”

“Does the bell know that?”

Blottisham paused.

“Know what?”

“That the fox has stopped.”

“Don't be absurd. Bells don't know things.”

“Then how can the bell possess meaning?”

Blottisham looked irritated.

“It doesn't need to know.”

Quillibrace smiled.

“Now we are getting somewhere.”

“We are?”

“No.”

Blottisham sat down.

“The meaning is in the relation between the bell and the fox.”

“Better,” said Stray.

“The bell signals the fox.”

“Possibly.”

“Again with the ‘possibly’.”

“The fox might simply be startled.”

“But it stops.”

“Many things cause animals to stop.”

Blottisham considered this.

“Then the bell's meaning is not intrinsic.”

“Apparently not.”

“It's relational.”

“Apparently.”

“Contextual.”

“Apparently.”

“Emergent.”

Quillibrace put down the newspaper.

“Please don't.”

“Why not?”

“Because you are beginning to put adjectives where evidence should be.”

Blottisham looked wounded.

“I am synthesising.”

“You are decorating.”

Stray smiled into her tea.

Blottisham continued.

“Very well. The bell becomes meaningful because the fox responds to it.”

“Only when the fox is there,” said Stray.

“Yes.”

“And what about the times when the bell rings and nobody hears it?”

Blottisham thought.

“It still has meaning.”

“For whom?”

“For the fox.”

“The fox isn't there.”

“For the potential fox.”

Quillibrace closed his eyes.

“The potential fox.”

“Yes.”

“A fascinating creature.”

“Professor.”

“I merely hope it doesn't become another technicality.”

Stray looked towards the window.

“I think the story is interested in something else.”

“Such as?”

“The bell and the fox gradually becoming part of the same place.”

Blottisham frowned.

“But the bell doesn't intend to become part of anything.”

“Neither does the fox.”

“Then nothing is happening.”

“Something is happening,” said Stray. “It just isn't being done by anyone.”

Quillibrace nodded.

“The forest is acquiring a pattern.”

Blottisham brightened.

“Exactly! A semiotic pattern.”

“No.”

“A communicative ecology?”

“No.”

“A distributed meaning system?”

“No.”

Blottisham looked at Stray.

“What would you call it?”

She thought for a moment.

“I don't know.”

Quillibrace nodded approvingly.

“Excellent.”

Blottisham looked from one to the other.

“You both seem remarkably pleased with not knowing.”

“Not knowing,” said Quillibrace, “is sometimes the most accurate description available.”

“But surely the bell means something.”

Stray smiled.

“Perhaps.”

Blottisham groaned.

“Not again.”

Outside, somewhere beyond the garden, a bell rang.

The three of them stopped talking.

For a moment, nobody moved.

Then Quillibrace looked at Blottisham.

“You see?”

Blottisham nodded slowly.

“Yes.”

“What do you see?”

Blottisham considered this.

“That we have all become foxes.”

There was a silence.

Stray began to laugh.

Quillibrace picked up his newspaper.

“Don't tell anyone.”

The Bell That Rang When Nobody Was Listening

There was an old bell beside a path.

Nobody knew who had put it there.

It hung from a crooked wooden frame, and the frame had been there for so long that moss had begun to grow on it.

The bell did not mind the moss.

It did not mind the rain either.

When the wind blew, the bell moved.

Sometimes it rang.

Sometimes it did not.

One evening, the wind came down from the hill.

The bell swung.

Clang.

A fox was walking through the grass.

It stopped.

The bell swung again.

Clang.

The fox looked towards the sound.

There was nothing to see except the old wooden frame.

The fox waited.

The bell was silent.

So the fox continued along the path.

The next evening, the wind came down from the hill again.

The bell swung.

Clang.

The fox stopped.

It was not exactly waiting for the bell.

At least, that is what the fox would have said if foxes had been in the habit of explaining themselves.

It simply stopped.

The bell swung once more.

Clang.

The fox looked at it.

Then it walked on.

After that, the fox sometimes passed the bell.

Sometimes the bell rang.

Sometimes it did not.

The fox began to notice the difference.

When the bell rang, it stopped.

When it did not, it kept walking.

The bell knew nothing about this.

It rang when the wind moved it.

It was not trying to make the fox stop.

It was not calling the fox.

It did not even know there was a fox.

One morning, there was no wind.

The fox came along the path.

The bell was still.

The fox stopped beside it.

It looked up.

Nothing happened.

The fox waited.

Still nothing.

After a while, it walked on.

The following evening, the wind returned.

The bell rang.

The fox was nowhere nearby.

Clang.

The sound travelled across the grass.

It reached the trees.

It reached the stream.

It disappeared into the evening.

Nobody heard it.

The bell did not know that.

It simply rang.

A few days later, the fox came along the path again.

The wind was very light.

The bell gave a small sound.

Clang.

The fox stopped immediately.

This time, it did not look at the bell.

It looked towards the trees.

There was something there.

A bird moved among the branches.

The fox watched.

The bird watched the fox.

Then the bird flew away.

The fox continued along the path.

From then on, the bell and the fox seemed to belong to the same part of the forest.

The bell still rang when the wind moved it.

The fox still stopped when it heard the sound.

Neither had decided that this should happen.

It simply did.

One autumn afternoon, a storm came.

The wind pulled hard at the old wooden frame.

The bell swung wildly.

Clang.

Clang.

Clang.

The fox was far away.

It heard nothing.

The storm passed.

The bell became still.

Leaves covered the path.

The fox returned the next morning.

It stopped beneath the wooden frame.

For a moment, it waited.

Then the wind moved.

The bell gave a single, quiet sound.

Clang.

The fox lifted its head.

It stood very still.

And for a little while, the bell and the fox were listening to the same thing.

Neither of them knew what it was.

The Puddle That Was There Yesterday — A Senior Common Room Discussion

“I have it,” said Blottisham.

Professor Quillibrace did not look up.

“Do you?”

“The puddle.”

Miss Stray looked across the table.

“The puddle?”

“Yes. The puddle that was there yesterday.”

Quillibrace folded the corner of his newspaper.

“I had wondered how long it would take.”

“It is clearly Heraclitean.”

“Of course.”

“The puddle changes continuously.”

“Yes.”

“The water evaporates.”

“Yes.”

“Rain replenishes it.”

“Yes.”

“And therefore”—Blottisham raised one finger—“it is never the same puddle twice.”

There was a pause.

Stray said, “Wasn't that the point?”

“Exactly.”

“No,” said Quillibrace. “That was the beginning of the problem.”

Blottisham frowned.

“I have solved the problem.”

“You have named it.”

“Which is the first stage of solving it.”

“Only at St Anselm's,” said Quillibrace.

Blottisham ignored him.

“The question is: what makes the puddle the same puddle?”

“Water,” said Quillibrace.

Blottisham looked offended.

“Professor.”

“I thought I would save time.”

“It isn't the same water.”

“Then the mud?”

“Also changes.”

“The depression in the path?”

“Closer.”

“The place?”

“Closer still.”

Blottisham smiled.

“Then I am right.”

“No.”

“But you just said—”

“I said you were closer.”

Stray had been looking out of the window.

“I think the blackbird is important.”

Blottisham sighed.

“The blackbird.”

“It keeps coming back.”

“Because it likes puddles.”

“Perhaps.”

“Then the blackbird is merely an empirical distraction.”

Quillibrace raised an eyebrow.

“That's an unusually confident way of describing a bird.”

Stray continued.

“The puddle changes. The water changes. The weather changes. Even the path changes a little. But the blackbird keeps returning to something.”

“To the water,” said Blottisham.

“Perhaps.”

“To its reflection?”

“Perhaps.”

“To the place?”

“Perhaps.”

Blottisham looked exasperated.

“You can't keep saying ‘perhaps’.”

“Why not?”

“Because we are academics.”

Quillibrace nodded solemnly.

“She has a point.”

Blottisham leaned back.

“Very well. The blackbird recognises the persistence of the puddle through change.”

“Does it?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it returns.”

“Or it returns because there is water there.”

Blottisham paused.

“That amounts to the same thing.”

“No,” said Stray.

“Why not?”

“Because you're making the blackbird answer a question we asked.”

Quillibrace smiled.

“A common academic practice.”

Blottisham looked from one to the other.

“But the story asks whether the puddle is the same puddle.”

“Does it?” said Stray.

“It says the puddle wonders.”

“Yes.”

“So the question is there.”

“Perhaps.”

Blottisham groaned.

“Must everything be ‘perhaps’?”

“No,” said Quillibrace. “Only the things we haven't established.”

Blottisham was silent for a moment.

Then he said, “I still think the puddle is an excellent illustration of Heraclitus.”

“I don't doubt it,” said Quillibrace.

“But it isn't an illustration of Heraclitus.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because Heraclitus didn't have a puddle.”

Blottisham stared at him.

Stray laughed.

Quillibrace returned to his newspaper.

Outside, it had begun to rain.

Blottisham looked towards the window.

“I wonder if it is the same rain.”

“No,” said Quillibrace.

“How do you know?”

“I don't.”

Blottisham smiled.

“Perhaps.”

Quillibrace lowered the newspaper.

“Don't start.”

The Puddle That Was There Yesterday

There was a puddle in the middle of a path.

Nobody knew exactly when it had arrived.

It had probably rained during the night.

The puddle did not know this.

It knew only that, in the morning, it was there.

A blackbird came along.

It hopped over the puddle.

A leaf fell into it.

The puddle reflected the sky.

For a while, everything was quiet.

Then the sun came out.

The puddle became smaller.

It did not mind.

It had never expected to stay the same size.

By lunchtime, it was smaller still.

By afternoon, there was only a damp patch on the path.

The next morning, the puddle was gone.

A blackbird came along.

It hopped over the damp patch.

Then it stopped.

It looked down.

It looked around.

It seemed puzzled.

The following night, it rained again.

In the morning, there was a puddle in the middle of the path.

The blackbird came back.

It looked at the puddle.

The puddle looked at the sky.

Neither said anything.

The blackbird hopped across.

The puddle was larger than it had been the day before.

The blackbird seemed pleased.

It began to visit every morning.

Sometimes the puddle was large.

Sometimes it was small.

Sometimes leaves floated in it.

Sometimes there were little bubbles.

Once, a feather landed on the surface and stayed there until the wind carried it away.

The puddle began to wonder about something.

Was it the same puddle?

It had no idea.

The water in it was always changing.

Some of the water ran away into the ground.

Some evaporated into the air.

More arrived when it rained.

The path beneath it was the same.

The sky above it was never quite the same.

Even the blackbird was different from one morning to the next.

And yet, every morning, the blackbird came to the same place.

The puddle began to think that perhaps being the same did not mean having the same water.

Perhaps it meant being the place where certain things happened.

One morning, the blackbird did not come.

The puddle waited.

The sun rose.

A cloud passed over.

A beetle walked across its edge.

Still the blackbird did not come.

The puddle felt strangely empty.

It had not known that a puddle could feel empty.

But there it was.

That afternoon, the sun was warm.

The puddle became smaller.

By evening, it was almost gone.

The next morning, there was no puddle.

Only the path.

The blackbird arrived.

It stood where the puddle had been.

It looked down.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then it tilted its head.

And flew away.

Several days passed.

Then it rained.

Not heavily.

Just enough.

Water gathered in the hollow in the path.

By morning, there was a puddle again.

The blackbird returned.

It stood beside the water.

It did not know whether this was the puddle from before.

The puddle did not know either.

But when the blackbird hopped into it, the water moved around its feet.

And for a moment, the puddle was there.

The blackbird was there.

The path was there.

The sky was there.

And that seemed to be enough.

The Spoon That Wasn't Quite Where It Was — A Senior Common Room Discussion

The Senior Common Room was unusually quiet.

Professor Quillibrace was reading the newspaper.

Miss Stray was looking out of the window.

Mr Blottisham was holding a piece of toast.

“I have solved it,” said Blottisham.

Quillibrace lowered the newspaper.

“Have you?”

“Yes.”

Stray turned from the window.

“The spoon.”

“What spoon?” said Quillibrace.

“The spoon in the story.”

“I see.”

Blottisham put down his toast.

“It is obviously an ontological parable.”

Quillibrace looked at Stray.

Stray looked at Quillibrace.

“Obviously,” said Quillibrace.

“The spoon begins with a naive conception of location,” Blottisham continued. “It assumes that being somewhere is an intrinsic property. But then the boy looks for it, and we discover that there is a distinction between where an object is and where it is sought.”

“Yes,” said Stray.

Blottisham smiled.

“Precisely.”

“I wasn't agreeing with you,” said Stray.

“I know. But you should have been.”

Quillibrace returned to his newspaper.

Blottisham continued.

“The crucial sentence is: ‘There was where it was. And there was where someone was looking for it.’”

“An excellent sentence,” said Stray.

“Thank you.”

“It wasn't yours.”

“I am aware of that.”

Blottisham leaned forward.

“The spoon's error is to think that location is purely spatial.”

Quillibrace sighed.

“Must we?”

“We must,” said Blottisham.

“Why?”

“Because the spoon is clearly telling us that objects acquire their identity through relations.”

Stray smiled.

“Does it?”

“Of course.”

“Where does it say that?”

“It doesn't need to say it. That's what it means.”

Quillibrace folded the newspaper.

“Ah.”

Blottisham looked pleased.

“Professor?”

“I was merely acknowledging the arrival of the problem.”

“What problem?”

“The problem of your interpretation.”

“There is no problem with my interpretation.”

“There is always a problem with an interpretation that begins by announcing that it has decoded the text.”

Blottisham frowned.

“But surely the story is about something.”

“Almost certainly.”

“And therefore it has a meaning.”

“Almost certainly.”

“So I am right.”

“No.”

Blottisham looked at Stray.

“Miss Stray?”

She considered the matter.

“I think the interesting thing is that the spoon doesn't actually become different.”

Blottisham waved this away.

“Metaphorically, it undergoes a profound transformation.”

“No,” said Stray.

“No?”

“It remains a spoon.”

“But—”

“It falls behind the cupboard. The boy looks for it. He finds it. He uses it. Nothing about the spoon itself changes.”

Blottisham looked annoyed.

“Then why does the spoon seem to think something has happened?”

Stray paused.

“Perhaps because something has happened.”

“What?”

“The boy.”

Blottisham waited.

“The boy looks for the spoon,” she said. “Then he finds it. The spoon becomes part of what he is doing. Perhaps what changes isn't the spoon's identity, but its participation.”

Quillibrace nodded.

“Better.”

Blottisham sat back.

“Participation.”

“Yes.”

“That is my word.”

“No,” said Quillibrace. “It is Miss Stray's.”

Blottisham ignored him.

“Then the spoon participates in the boy's intention.”

“Possibly.”

“And therefore its location is constituted by intention.”

“No.”

“By attention?”

“No.”

“By use?”

“Perhaps sometimes.”

Blottisham looked triumphant.

“Then I was right.”

Quillibrace picked up his newspaper again.

“You were nearby.”

Blottisham looked at Stray.

“Is that the same thing?”

She smiled.

“I don't think so.”

There was a short silence.

Then Blottisham said, “I still think the spoon has a secret meaning.”

Quillibrace unfolded the newspaper.

“I'm sure it does.”

“What is it?”

“I have no idea.”

Blottisham looked dissatisfied.

Stray returned to the window.

Outside, someone was looking for something.

None of them could see what it was.

The Spoon That Wasn't Quite Where It Was

There was once a spoon that lived in a kitchen.

It was not a particularly remarkable spoon.

It was silver, although it had become a little less silver near the handle, and it had a small scratch on its bowl. It had spent many years in a drawer with forks and knives and another spoon that looked almost exactly like it.

The spoon knew where the drawer was.

It knew where the table was.

It knew where the cupboard was.

And it knew that when the kettle began to make a humming sound, someone would soon come into the kitchen.

The spoon liked the humming sound.

It did not know why.

One morning, the spoon was taken from the drawer and placed on the table.

A little boy sat down beside it.

He looked at the spoon.

The spoon looked, as much as a spoon can look, at the little boy.

Then the boy picked it up.

He dipped it into a bowl.

The spoon disappeared beneath the porridge.

This was not unusual.

The spoon had spent a great deal of time beneath porridge.

But this time, when the boy lifted it out, the spoon noticed something strange.

The boy smiled.

The spoon had never thought much about smiles.

It had seen them before, of course. But usually from a distance, while lying quietly on the table.

This smile seemed to be for the spoon.

The spoon did not know what to make of this.

So it waited.

The next morning, the boy came into the kitchen again.

He opened the drawer.

He moved the forks.

He moved the knives.

He moved the other spoon.

Then he stopped.

“Where is my spoon?”

The spoon was not in the drawer.

It was on the draining board.

The boy picked it up.

“There you are.”

The spoon was puzzled.

It had not gone anywhere.

It had been exactly where it was.

But apparently that was not the same thing as being where the boy thought it was.

After that, the spoon began to notice something.

There was where it was.

And there was where someone was looking for it.

Sometimes they were the same.

Sometimes they weren't.

One afternoon, the spoon fell behind the cupboard.

It landed with a small clink.

Nobody heard.

The kitchen became quiet.

The spoon waited.

For a long time, nothing happened.

Then, from somewhere above, it heard the kettle begin to hum.

The spoon listened.

It had always liked that sound.

But now it noticed something else.

It was not only that the sound was pleasant.

It meant that someone would soon come into the kitchen.

The spoon waited.

Footsteps approached.

A cupboard opened.

A drawer closed.

Then the boy's voice:

“Where's my spoon?”

The spoon was behind the cupboard.

The boy searched.

He looked on the table.

He looked in the drawer.

He looked beside the sink.

He looked everywhere he could think of.

But not behind the cupboard.

“I can't find it,” he said.

The spoon wanted, somehow, to be found.

It did not know why.

It had been perfectly content behind the cupboard.

It was still perfectly capable of being a spoon.

It had not changed.

And yet, somehow, the kitchen seemed different because it wasn't where the boy expected it to be.

Then the boy looked under the table.

He looked behind the chair.

He looked again in the drawer.

And finally he knelt down.

There was a narrow gap beneath the cupboard.

He put his hand into it.

His fingers touched the spoon.

“There you are!”

He pulled it out.

For a moment the spoon lay in his hand.

The boy laughed.

The spoon could not laugh.

But it felt something.

It was not quite like being warm.

It was not quite like being lifted.

It was not quite like being polished.

It was something that seemed to happen between the boy and the spoon.

Then the boy carried it to the table.

The kettle was still humming.

The bowl was waiting.

The spoon was ready.

And for the first time, the spoon wondered whether perhaps it had not been quite right about where it lived.

Perhaps it did not live in the drawer.

Perhaps it lived somewhere else.

It wasn't sure where.

But when the boy picked it up, it seemed to be exactly where it belonged.

The Little Thing That Wasn't Sure What It Was: VI. The Little Thing That Found Itself

The little thing woke up.

It remembered the word it had heard.

It was still there.

Not in the sky.

Not beside the river.

Not beneath the tree.

Inside.

The little thing said the word.

Nothing happened.

It said it again.

Still nothing.

So it went looking for itself.

It looked beside the river.

There was the river.

It looked beneath the tree.

There was the tree.

It looked into the sky.

There was the sky.

But wherever it looked, it found something else.

At last it sat down.

“I cannot find myself,” it said.

Then it heard a small voice.

“Where are you looking?”

The little thing looked around.

Nobody was there.

“I am looking for me.”

The voice said:

“Who is looking?”

The little thing was quiet.

It had never thought about that before.

It looked at the river.

Then at the tree.

Then at the sky.

“I am,” it said.

The word seemed to hang in the air.

“I.”

The little thing said it again.

“I.”

And something strange happened.

The word did not point to the river.

It did not point to the tree.

It did not point to the sky.

It pointed back.

The little thing suddenly understood.

It had been looking for itself as though it were another thing in the world.

But it was also the one doing the looking.

It was the one saying the names.

It was the one remembering the river when the river was far away.

It was the one imagining the bird when the bird was not there.

It was the one asking questions about words.

It was the one listening for an answer.

The little thing smiled.

“I am me,” it said.

The river continued to flow.

The tree continued to grow.

The bird crossed the sky.

Nothing in the world had changed.

And yet everything was different.

The little thing had found itself.

Not by finding another thing.

By finding the one who had been looking.

It stood up.

Then it looked at the world.

“River.”

“Tree.”

“Bird.”

“Sky.”

It looked at itself.

“I.”

For a while, the little thing said nothing.

Then it began to tell a story.

Once there was a little thing.

Nobody knew what it was.

The little thing didn't know either.

But it had a world full of things to discover.

And the story went on.

The Little Thing That Wasn't Sure What It Was: V. The Name That Came Back

The little thing had been thinking about the bird.

The bird was still somewhere beyond the river.

The little thing could imagine it.

But it wanted to see it again.

So it went looking.

It followed the river.

It climbed the hill.

It crossed the field.

At last it found the bird sitting on a branch.

“Bird!” cried the little thing.

The bird flew away.

The little thing watched it go.

Then it noticed something strange.

There were two birds.

One was in the sky.

The other was in its mind.

The little thing had said the name.

The name had brought the bird back.

But the bird in its mind was not the bird in the sky.

It was smaller.

It was quieter.

It could stay still.

It could fly anywhere the little thing wanted.

The little thing began to play.

“Bird on tree.”

The bird appeared in its mind.

“Bird above river.”

The bird moved.

“Bird under cloud.”

The bird moved again.

Then the little thing said:

“Bird that cannot fly.”

The bird remained in its mind.

The little thing stared.

It had changed the bird without changing the bird.

It had changed what the name could mean.

Then it tried something stranger.

“Bird-brain.”

The little thing laughed.

There was no bird-brain sitting anywhere.

But the words seemed to mean something.

Then it said:

“Bird-brave.”

Now the bird was not a thing at all.

It was a way of being.

The little thing stopped laughing.

A name could go away from the thing it named.

It could meet another word.

It could return carrying something new.

The little thing looked at the bird in the sky.

Then at the bird in its mind.

The same name belonged to both.

But it did not mean exactly the same thing.

The little thing had discovered that words could change without changing their names.

And then it wondered about its own name.

It had been called many things.

Little thing.

Creature.

You.

But none of them seemed quite right.

The little thing whispered:

“What do you call me?”

There was no answer.

So it listened.

And from somewhere very far away, it heard a word.

It sounded like its own name.

The little thing looked around.

No one was there.

It said the word again.

This time, it sounded different.

It sounded as though it had come back.

The Little Thing That Wasn't Sure What It Was: IV. The Thing That Wasn't There

The little thing went back to the river.

The river was there.

The tree was there.

The stones were there.

But the bird was not.

The little thing looked up.

“Bird.”

Nothing.

It looked along the riverbank.

“Bird.”

Nothing.

Then it remembered the words from yesterday.

“Bird by river.”

And suddenly it could see the bird.

Not with its eyes.

With something else.

It imagined the bird sitting on a branch above the water.

It imagined its wings opening.

It imagined it flying away.

The little thing looked around.

The branch was there.

The river was there.

But the bird was not.

“Where did it come from?” asked the little thing.

Nobody answered.

The little thing said the words again.

“Bird by river.”

There was the bird.

And when it stopped saying them, the bird disappeared.

The little thing became very still.

It had found a thing that wasn't there.

It tried something else.

“Red moon.”

The moon appeared in its thoughts.

But it was daytime.

There was no moon.

The little thing laughed.

It had made something appear without making it real.

Then it wondered whether it could make something disappear.

“Bird not by river.”

The bird vanished.

The little thing stopped laughing.

It had discovered that words could do more than remember things.

They could make things present that were absent.

They could make things absent that were present.

They could put things together that had never been together.

They could separate things that belonged together.

The little thing looked at the river.

It was still there.

It looked at the tree.

Still there.

It looked at the empty branch.

The bird was not there.

But the little thing knew exactly where it was.

Somewhere beyond the river.

Somewhere in the sky.

Somewhere in the world of words.

The little thing thought about this for a long time.

Then it asked:

“If a thing can be somewhere without being here,

where is the word?”

And for the first time, the little thing wondered whether here was the only place a thing could be.

The Little Thing That Wasn't Sure What It Was: III. The Word That Went Somewhere

The little thing thought about the name.

“Bird.”

The bird had flown away.

But the word had stayed.

The little thing said it again.

“Bird.”

Then it had an idea.

It walked to the river.

“Bird.”

Nothing happened.

It walked to the tree.

“Bird.”

Still nothing.

So the little thing picked up a stick.

It pointed the stick toward the sky.

“Bird!”

A bird flew overhead.

The little thing laughed.

“Bird!”

The bird flew away.

The little thing laughed again.

It had not called the bird.

It had only said its name.

But somehow the name had gone somewhere.

The little thing tried another word.

“River.”

It pointed toward the water.

“River.”

Then it pointed toward a puddle.

“River?”

The puddle was not the river.

The little thing thought about this.

A word could go somewhere.

But it did not always arrive in the same place.

It walked on.

Soon it came to a hill.

From the top of the hill, it could see the river far below.

“River,” it said.

The word seemed to reach all the way down.

Then it turned around.

“River.”

Now the word was beside it.

The little thing began to wonder whether words travelled at all.

Perhaps they did not go anywhere.

Perhaps they made somewhere.

It sat beneath a tree.

“Tree.”

The tree was there.

“River.”

The river was far away.

“Bird.”

The bird was nowhere to be seen.

Yet all three were suddenly with the little thing.

Not in the same way.

But in its mind.

The little thing looked at the words.

Then it had another idea.

It put two words together.

“Bird river.”

The little thing waited.

Nothing happened.

It tried again.

“Bird by river.”

And now it could imagine it.

A bird beside the river.

The bird was not there.

The river was.

But the words had made a place where the bird could be.

The little thing stared at the empty air.

It had discovered something peculiar.

A word could go somewhere it had never been.

And it could take something with it.

The Little Thing That Wasn't Sure What It Was: II. The Day It Found a Name

The next morning, the little thing went looking for the blue thing.

It was not there.

The little thing looked beside the river.

It looked under a tree.

It looked behind a stone.

Then it heard a sound.

“River.”

The little thing looked up.

Someone was standing beside the water.

“River,” they said again.

The little thing looked at the water.

“River?”

“Yes,” said the someone.

The little thing looked at the water for a long time.

“So that is its name?”

“Yes.”

The little thing was delighted.

It ran along the bank.

“River!”

The river did not answer.

The little thing found the green thing.

“What is that?”

“Tree.”

“Tree!”

It ran around the tree.

“Tree!”

Then it found the blue thing.

“What is that?”

“Sky.”

“Sky!”

The little thing looked up.

The blue thing was enormous.

It had never noticed how enormous it was before.

It sat down and thought about names.

A name could stay with something even when the thing went away.

The river could still be called river when the little thing was far from it.

The tree could still be called tree when it was dark.

The sky could still be called sky when nobody was looking.

The little thing tried this with everything.

“Stone.”

“Bird.”

“Grass.”

“Cloud.”

“Rain.”

Each time, something happened.

The thing remained what it had always been.

But now the little thing could find it again in its thoughts.

Then the little thing saw something it had never seen before.

It pointed.

“What is that?”

The someone looked.

“That is a bird.”

The bird flew away.

The little thing watched until it disappeared.

Then it smiled.

“Bird,” it said.

The bird was gone.

But the name remained.

The little thing had found something that could stay when the thing itself had gone.

That evening, when the sky became dark, the little thing looked up.

“Sky,” it whispered.

Then it wondered:

“If the name can stay when the thing is gone,

where does the name go?”

The little thing had found a name.

Now it had found a question.

The Little Thing That Wasn't Sure What It Was: I. The Little Thing

There was once a little thing.

Nobody knew what it was.

The little thing didn't know either.

It lived in a large world.

The world was full of things.

There were big things.

There were small things.

There were things that moved and things that stayed still.

There were things that made noises.

There were things that made no noises at all.

The little thing liked to watch them.

One day it saw something blue.

It followed the blue thing for a while.

Then the blue thing disappeared.

The little thing waited.

The blue thing came back.

The little thing followed it again.

“Where do you go?” asked the little thing.

The blue thing said nothing.

The next day the little thing found a green thing.

It followed the green thing.

The green thing did not disappear.

It stayed exactly where it was.

The little thing looked at the blue thing.

Then it looked at the green thing.

“They are different,” it said.

It did not know why that was important.

But it seemed important.

The little thing began to look more carefully.

Some things were soft.

Some things were hard.

Some things were near.

Some things were far away.

Some things came.

Some things went.

Some things stayed.

The little thing began to notice something else.

Whenever it noticed a difference, it could remember it.

The blue thing was not the green thing.

The thing that moved was not the thing that stayed.

The thing that came back was not the thing that disappeared.

The little thing thought about this.

Then it wondered:

“How will I know which thing is which tomorrow?”

It was a very good question.

But the little thing did not yet know the answer.

It had not found any names.

The Story That Learned to Think: VI. The Myth That Began to Think

The creature began to speak.

At first it named the things around it.

River.

Tree.

Bird.

Then it named the things it could not see.

Yesterday.

Tomorrow.

Dream.

Death.

And the words began to gather.

The creature told stories.

It told of the river that remembered the rain.

Of the tree that reached toward the sky.

Of the bird that carried messages between worlds.

Of the Speaker who had named everything.

The creature told the stories again.

And each time they returned, they were slightly different.

A word entered one story.

A name moved from one thing to another.

A relation became a journey.

A journey became a life.

A life became a story.

And the stories began to speak about the creature that told them.

The creature noticed this.

It told a story about the Speaker.

Then it told a story about the creature who had heard the Speaker.

Then it told a story about a creature telling a story about the creature who had heard the Speaker.

The saying had become a circle.

The creature was inside the story.

And the story was inside the creature.

One day the creature asked:

“Who was the Speaker?”

No one answered.

So the creature made a story.

Then it asked:

“Why was the world named?”

And it made another.

Then:

“What does it mean that we can name it?”

Again, a story.

The stories became larger.

They gathered the world into patterns.

They gave names to beginnings and endings.

They joined what had been separate.

They made relations visible.

They carried old meanings into new places.

And sometimes, when the creature told a story about the world, it seemed that the world was telling a story about itself.

The creature did not know when this had begun.

Perhaps it had begun with the first name.

Perhaps with the first word that heard itself.

Perhaps with the moment when a creature discovered that it too was a meaning.

But something had changed.

The saying no longer merely named the world.

It had begun to wonder about the world it had named.

The stories were no longer merely stories.

They were thinking.

And the creature looked at the story it had made.

For a moment, it saw itself within it.

Then it spoke one final sentence:

“This is how the world became a world.”

And the myth continued.

The Story That Learned to Think: V. The Creature That Was a Meaning

The Speaker had discovered that words could name the world.

Then the words could name one another.

And so the saying continued.

The Speaker named the river.

The Speaker named the tree.

The Speaker named the bird.

The Speaker named the names.

But one day the Speaker looked upon the creatures of the world and saw something different.

They moved through the world.

They fed.

They grew.

They made nests.

They raised their young.

They lived among the things that had been named.

But none of them had yet named themselves.

So the Speaker spoke a new name.

“Creature.”

And the creatures heard it.

Some continued feeding.

Some flew away.

Some looked up.

But one creature stopped.

It heard the sound.

Then it heard something else.

It heard itself within the sound.

The Speaker said:

“You.”

The creature looked around.

There was no other creature there.

The word had not merely named something.

It had turned toward it.

And the creature understood that the name was for itself.

For the first time, something in the world had become both the thing that was named and the one who heard the name.

The Speaker gave the creature another name.

“Human.”

The creature repeated it.

“Human.”

And the word came back carrying the creature with it.

The creature looked at the river.

“River.”

It looked at the tree.

“Tree.”

It looked at the bird.

“Bird.”

Then it looked at itself.

“Human.”

The creature was now one thing among many.

But it was also something that could say what it was.

It had become a meaning within the world.

And the world had acquired a creature who could give meanings back to it.

The Speaker said nothing.

There was no need.

The creature had begun to speak.