A fictional column from the Electric Icarus universe, created by Jon LaBelle.
Field Note: The Committee for Adequate Mysteries
At nine precisely, the Institute convened a committee to determine how much uncertainty a respectable institution ought to tolerate.
The chairman brought a ruler. The secretary brought a ledger. I brought coffee, which immediately placed me under suspicion.
“We cannot permit unanswered questions to accumulate,” the chairman announced. “They create an impression of disorder.”
“Then I recommend closing the windows,” I said. “The universe keeps getting in.”
A mechanical parrot on the filing cabinet repeated, “UNRESOLVED! UNRESOLVED!” The secretary entered this as a second opinion.
Our first case concerned a plant that had bloomed overnight in a locked room. The chairman proposed that it be classified as an administrative error. The secretary preferred a scheduling discrepancy. I suggested that perhaps the plant had simply grown.
This suggestion was rejected for being insufficiently procedural.
We next considered the telescope, which had been pointed at the same star for six weeks and had somehow inspired three competing reports, two resignations, and a proposal for a larger telescope. Nobody had thought to check whether the lens was clean.
The basset hound under my desk sneezed.
“Is that relevant?” asked the chairman.
“More than the second report,” I said.
By noon, the committee had voted to establish a subcommittee to define the word “mystery.” Its first recommendation was to eliminate the term from all official correspondence.
The plant, meanwhile, produced another flower.
I wrote one sentence in my notebook: A question is not a failure merely because it has not yet become an answer.
The parrot considered this for a moment.
“PENDING!” it cried.
For once, I thought, the bird had understood the assignment.
