BY DOMINIC WIGHTMAN
In the airless confines of the tube, the world outside felt distant. I sat still, encased in the metal canister, time stretching like a taut string, ready to snap. I had been sat there since Moorgate. Nearby, a Salafi with a bulky backpack glared at us kufrs, his ankle socks a giveaway, disdain etched upon his face, his dishdasha an oddity for a Tuesday.
For a moment, stumbling honestly into stereotypicity, I entertained the notion of being blown to pieces alongside these strangers. The lady opposite with her young child, the old perv beside me eyeing a schoolgirl, and a boy who seemed South American—probably London born, part of Khan’s kaleidoscope. Just random souls on a tube.
I felt trapped. Suffocated. What if we all perished now? What was the purpose of it all?
In the oppressive silence, a voice stirred within me, unexpected yet intimately familiar. It was my consciousness, a quiet echo amidst the bleakness of the moment.
‘Here we are,’ it intoned, almost playfully, weaving through my thoughts like smoke in a dimly lit room. ‘I am the observer, perceiving without eyes, voicing without a mouth. What am I, if not the essence that brings awareness to this instant?’
I turned this riddle over, feeling the weight of its truth. ‘You are consciousness,’ I replied softly.
Thus, more riddles unfurled, swirling in my mind like dust caught in a beam of light. ‘I am not the body, though I dwell within. I am not the brain, yet I understand its intricacies. I flow and shift, ever changing, yet remain constant—what am I, if not the name you cling to when all else fades?’
The response was clear, simple in its depth. ‘You are the mind, my multifaceted mirror, the keeper of my essence,’ I answered, an understanding solidifying in the space between breaths.
‘Indeed,’ it whispered, ‘but what of the hard problem? That puzzle kept alive by the contemplations of the wise? How do joys and sorrows spring from mere neurons firing, from electricity weaving through the complex grey matter? I am the thought that stirs your soul, the feeling that makes you whole. Can you touch me? No, yet I define your survival—what am I?’
The tube continued to constrict, the air thickening with each interrogation and every Salafi twitch. ‘You are emotion,’ I replied, my voice barely a thought, ‘the core of my being, shifting yet constant, guiding me through sorrow and joy alike.’
‘Is that all?’ it teased, light yet laden with challenge. ‘I change with time yet remain unyielding. I am fleeting and eternal, yet I am not defined by a name. I hold your past, but I am not your past. I know your future, untouched though it lies ahead. What am I?’
I paused, gazing at the walls spattered with woke ads, the steady pulse of machinery marking the moments. ‘You are the self,’ I ventured softly, ‘an illusion woven with certainty, my past intertwined within the fabric of present yearning.’ I gasped for air and longed for the green and gold of Dartmoor (even Wimbledon Common would have sufficed).
‘A sound response,’ it chimed, a soft echo against the sterile backdrop. ‘Yet I dwell beneath the surface, unseen but always guiding. I influence choices, hidden beneath layers, the current of emotion steering your path. What am I?’
The weight of the riddle bore down on me, pressing into my chest as if urging me deeper. ‘You are the subconscious,’ I breathed, acknowledging yet another facet of that which defines me.
As my thoughts churned, a final riddle crashed over me like a wave. ‘What is my nature? Am I merely biology, a series of chemical reactions and electrical impulses? I am not flesh, yet I am all that entwines. What am I?’
As we approached St James’ Park, I answered loudly and resolutely, ‘You are consciousness, the spark of existence, the unseen force that shapes us into something profound. Without you, I would cease to exist.’
The Salafist turned around and regarded me with a steely gaze. The old pervert scowled too.
Oops, I had answered outspokenly.
Silence followed.
In that moment, I grasped that consciousness, like life, is an ever-evolving journey—a circle line—one I would continue to traverse with every thought, every breath, and each fleeting moment; a theory perpetuated by the Salafi disembarking at Victoria. Soon I too would disembark.
Dominic Wightman is the Editor of Country Squire Magazine and the author of Dear Townies, Arcadia and Truth among other books including ‘Conservatism’ which publishes later this month.