Mr F (of Supple Mind)

Blessed are the weak of mind for they shall have the appearance of answers and be troubled only when they encounter people with contrary answers and yet not really troubled for although they may become angry it is evident that anger at other people is more readily bearable than the ambivalence that pressed down on the skull of Mr F like a ten-tonne truck. He had tried always to remain fair-minded and this was the cause of his downfall for in always being willing to see the other side of the coin or the argument or the point of view taken by a majority of his peers he had buried his brain under such a weight of prevarications and reversals that he could no longer get a fixed handle on anything whatsoever without immediately his mind upending itself with the thought that well but from another perspective given other assumptions under a different imaginary regime could this not also be considered in another quite dissimilar light? He became incapable of belief in any strong sense action in any strong sense conviction in anything but the most feeble and inconsequential of subjective matters of taste and preference such as whether this butter was better than this butter substitute (it was) whether this way of angling the mirror better suited the ambient light of the bedroom (it did not though it depended on the time of year) whether the broad nib produced a better effect in the writing of greetings cards than the fine nib (yes always subject to the condition that the writing surface was of sufficient quality that the ink flowing as it would in greater quantity would not feather). On all matters of public or civic importance he became as passive and impassive as a sea sponge allowing the views and opinions and judgements of others to flow through him like water noting each as they passed with not a little curiosity but never interfering with them let alone daring to take them upon himself as his own. He sat then most days moving a group of small faintly coloured stones around on an empty table that he liked first into this formation then into that formation and a third and a fourth until one afternoon feeling tired he went to his bed and laid his head on his pillow to sleep. A thick black liquid dripped from his left ear down onto the pillow as he slept staining it and ruining its matte softness. With this Mr F just faded away and there was only the black liquid left there in the bed where he had been.

Simon Ravenscroft is a Fellow of Magdalene College, Cambridge working in philosophy and religion.