The Question Drawer
My position as Ambassador Extraordinary for Unfinished Questions would, from time to time, generate social invitations of considerable variety. There were official state functions, garden parties, and “At Home” events attended by mayors, civic dignitaries, and various officials whose chief talent appeared to consist of congratulating one another on the efficiency of their offices.
At one such gathering I found myself trapped within a small circle of mid-level and senior civil servants who were enthusiastically comparing efficiencies. I might have escaped much sooner had it not been for the company of a young woman among them. She neither preened nor pontificated. She possessed a quick wit, an alert intelligence, and a refreshing tendency to laugh before speaking.
At one point I remarked that efficiency was a splendid thing, provided one had sufficient space in which to be efficient. “But,” I added, “I am attempting to conduct the affairs of Unfinished Questions from my home. The questions arrive faster than the rooms.” This observation produced smiles, sympathetic nods, and several anecdotes concerning storage. The young woman listened carefully. Before we parted she informed me that she understood my predicament and would mention it to her superiors. “There may be opportunities,” she said, “to improve your circumstances.” I thanked her sincerely. As the evening drew to a close she repeated her promise.
Only a week later I found myself in possession of an office. It occupied a modest room with a generous window in the building of the Office of Classification. There was a desk. There were shelves. There were cabinets. There was even a brass plaque on the door. It was, in every practical respect, precisely what I needed.
I set about my ambassadorial duties with renewed vigour. The questions still arrived in alarming quantities, but they no longer lurked beneath chairs or balanced precariously upon windowsills. They no longer migrated mysteriously between rooms or nested in teapots. Nor did they take up temporary employment as bookmarks, coasters, or table wedges. They continued, however, to arrive in a bewildering variety of forms, from sheets of paper and sealed envelopes to beer mats and the backs of restaurant menus. Unfinished Questions had never shown much regard for standardisation.
Even with shelves, cabinets, paperweights, and a collection of miscellaneous heavy objects pressed into service, the questions remained difficult to manage. A redundant one-pound weight, a half-used bag of sugar, and an empty tin of Irish fudge all found themselves recruited into the cause. Yet no sooner would a stack appear perfectly ordered than it would lose all commitment to organisation and spill across the floor.
The effect resembled the wind-scattered debris of feather-bed moss on an Irish mountainside. The slightest breeze from the narrowest crack in the window could lift dozens of questions into the air, where they wheeled and fluttered like enthusiastic competitors in a kite festival.
It seemed that more than a day each week was spent repairing the damage caused by these outbreaks of administrative freedom. Indeed, rather than the efficiency of the building improving my methods, my methods appeared to be infecting the efficiency of the building. During the weekly inspections I became, I suspected, less a model tenant than a cautionary example.
Then one morning I arrived to discover that someone had thoughtfully installed a cabinet containing dozens of labelled drawers. It appeared to have been built by someone who regarded right angles as a moral virtue. Its drawers aligned perfectly, its brass fittings matched exactly, and every surface carried the faint sheen associated with regular polishing and infrequent excitement. Merely looking at it gave one the reassuring impression that disorder was a temporary condition and that, with sufficient application, everything might eventually find its proper place. I took it as evidence that my work was valued.
Each drawer bore a large printed label written in the clear, unopinionated script favoured by the Office of Classification. The labels read like signposts through the landscape of inquiry: “Questions Concerning Location”, “Questions Concerning Identity”, “...Duration”, “...Ownership”, “...Origin”, and “...Purpose”, and many others besides. Several drawers remained unlabelled, standing ready for some species of unfinished question, not yet known. Across the top of the cabinet, worked neatly into the wood in a manner suggesting official doctrine, ran the words:
A Question Sorted Is A Question Managed
The sentiment seemed reasonable enough. And in all, the cabinet had the appearance of an object that knew precisely what everything was and where it ought to be kept. After moving the cabinet to a position where it might benefit from the morning light of the window, I began.
For several days I learned to work with growing satisfaction. Questions were read and sorted, and quickly disappeared into their allotted drawers. Space emerged upon the desk. Shelves became visible. Entire territories of floor were rediscovered. The improvised paperweights were retired from public service. The half-empty bag of sugar returned to the kitchen, and the tin of Irish fudge resumed its intended role of containing very little fudge. The goal of a tidy office seemed closer and closer
Better still, decisions became quicker. Questions which seemed at first to belong in several drawers usually settled into one if looked at firmly enough. Before long I could often identify a destination before reaching the end of the page. The cabinet approved of this sort of efficiency.
Even my home began to recover. A question still arrived there from time to time, but the great migrations had ceased. Evenings were no longer spent excavating dining tables or rescuing enquiries from beneath armchairs. The house gradually remembered that it was a home and not a branch office of unfinished thought.
Whilst my office progressively acquired the appearance and habit of industry and efficiency, I myself basked in the congratulatory compliments of my office neighbours, who clearly regarded themselves as my colleagues.
Occasionally a general office memo would arrive on my desk, from the young woman who had been so gracious as to assist me. And I noted that as time passed, her automated signature gave way to her own personal squiggle, which I read as “Daisy” and always with a prominent tittle over the lower case “i”. So it was with a little regret when the automated signature returned and I heard she had apparently transferred away. But still home was home, work was work and perhaps for the first time I inhabited a kind of contentment.
Still, I continued my work with vigour, humming to myself as I lifted each envelope and slit it open with my standard Office of Classification letter opener. I had come to enjoy the satisfying sound of the contents being released and the envelope at last being free to speak. “Efficiency is purpose, efficiency is sorting, a question sorted is a question managed...” I would improvise further verses as I worked. By now I had the whole operation perfected. Lift the next envelope with the left hand. Scan the face. Turn it over. Begin opening the flap with the letter opener held in the right hand whilst simultaneously scanning the reverse. Check the contents for any additional information. Clip envelope and question together. Reach for the appropriate drawer. More often than not the classification had already taken place in my mind before the envelope was fully opened.
I think I was doing precisely that when I picked up the next envelope. It was much like all the others. Reused. A little sparse on gum. Looking tired around the edges. Entirely ordinary, carrying its ordinary unfinished question inside. I slipped my fingers within and began to draw out the paper. But there, on the envelope reverse side, printed neatly across the bottom, were the words: What exactly is missing when something is absent?
I stopped. Everything about me stopped. No movement of the hands. No reaching for a drawer. No quiet decision already forming in the mind about where the question belonged. Nothing. What exactly is missing when something is absent? I read it again. And again. I placed it carefully upon the desk and walked away. Then I walked back. I read it aloud. “What exactly is missing when something is absent?” I crossed to the window and opened it. A few papers lifted from the desk. I opened another window, then another. Soon a breeze was wandering freely through the room. Questions stirred. Several departed from their piles entirely. I returned to my chair and sat down rather more heavily than intended.
What exactly is missing when something is absent? I was being judged. I looked towards the cabinet. How many questions had I understood merely well enough to know where to put them? How many had belonged partly in one drawer and partly in another, only to find themselves assigned permanently to whichever category happened to be largest? How many decisions had I mistaken for understanding?
What exactly is missing when something is absent? Anxious to have this letter classified and despatched, I looked at the drawers for inspiration: “Location.” “Identity.” “Duration.” None of them would do. So I created a new drawer. Later I created another. Then another. By the end of the week there were almost as many categories as questions. And still no solution. No tidly labelled drawer for the question.
The rapid proliferation of labelled drawers drew the attention of one particular ambitious Sorter. “You are having difficulty?” Telling me, rather than asking me. “Only with this one.” He studied the envelope. “It belongs somewhere.” “Yes.” “Then place it there.” I looked from the question to the cabinet and back again. “There is something odd,” I said. “What?” “The more precisely I classify it, the less I seem to understand it.” He frowned. “The purpose of classification is understanding. Only after classification can we assign meaning.” “I thought so too.” The Sorter pointed at the envelope. “What does the question mean?” I started to answer and then stopped. For I had realized that the question meant different things depending upon who read it. To a librarian it meant one thing. To a widow another. To a child searching for a lost toy something else entirely. Its category remained unchanged. Its meaning did not.
“The classification tells me where it belongs,” I said at last. “Exactly.” “Yes. But not why it matters.” The Sorter regarded me with the polite concern usually reserved for damaged furniture. After he departed I removed the question from the drawer and began to carry it in my pocket.
Unsorted.
✒️ Sigi