The Mariner

The woman scrunched up her face, wrinkles folding over one another in disgust, “I didn’t do anything to deserve this, they just put me here.” She looked as if she’d been left standing in the rain, rather than deserted on a rock to starve. She smiled, trying to put on a brave face for company. “My name is Gloria. I teach Philosophy. What’s your name young man?”

“I don’t have a name.”

This did not meet the same distrust he usually received. “Very well, in absence of a mother, I shall name you…” she rolled her eyes upwards, scanning the heavens for inspiration. “Edward. That’s a handsome name. Noble, yet dashing.”

“Thank you,” said the newly named Edward.

“You are most welcome.”

“What is ‘Philosophy’?”

“Good question! Probably the first that I ask my students, and often they are still pondering it when they finish the course! It is the study of knowledge, of how to think, how to live. It’s the oldest of all teachings.” She saw that he looked blank so pressed on. “For instance, we look at Plato, and his belief in Forms. He believed in perfect metaphysical entities from which we share properties; for instance a painting can be beautiful, but it is not the definition of beauty. So beauty must be something else — a metaphysical Form.”

The two were getting close now, only eight feet or so between them. Upon closer inspection the Mariner could see just how frail and thin the old woman was, and her clothes, whilst bright, were tattered.

She continued her lecture. “Let me see, who else do we cover? There’s John Stuart Mills. Nietzsche. We also look at Rene Descartes — wazza drunkenfart — and his views on mind-body dualism.”

The interruption was so quick it could easily have been missed. The words flew out the side of her mouth like a tick or spasm, the eager syllables jostling her head to the side as they escaped. Afterwards she continued as if nothing had happened, but the Mariner had noticed, and now he was staring at the scratches that ran up the side of her neck. And the blood caked about her ears.

“Classical philosophy is, in my view, the best part of the syllabus. We look at the three greats, Plato, Eric Idle, and Aristotle — aristotle wazza bugga forthe—”

The last word seemed to get jammed in her throat. Her eyes rolled into her head as she choked, her body jerking. Hands, tense and claw-like, reached up and began scratching at her head. The Mariner’s bowels froze as the woman let out a strange growling somewhere deep in her throat. Like an abused dog her face contorted, lips pulled back over ancient brown teeth.

Suddenly her eyes flicked down from inside her skull and focused on the Mariner. She screamed, and flung forward, hands outstretched and clasping, spitting and shrieking. The chains held her in place, pulling back like a leash. His heart sank as he recognized what she was: one of the Mindless. The state was all too common; he’d slain several of her kind. None quite like this though, usually a person either had a mind or they didn’t, not a strange in-between. He was thankful for the chains. The Mindless wanted nothing but to kill those who still had thoughts, and claw open their heads to get at them.

Suddenly the murderous fury drained out of her, and she was sweet old Gloria once more.

“Bottle!” she cried, as if she’d answered a riddle. “How silly of me, it’s Philosophy one-oh-one! Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle! Monty Python said that before he was put to death for teaching philosophy in ancient Greece.” She smiled at him, seeming not to notice his revulsion. “You see, being a lover of knowledge is dangerous business. You have to contend with religion for one thing. The clever ones worked it into their writings, included God whenever they could. That way they would be free from unwarranted persecution.”

She stopped, all calm and chattiness falling from her, revealing a sad and hungry wretch. A lonely woman, starving and afraid. “Are you going to save me?”

The Mariner wanted to take another drink from the bottle, but thought that cruel. Instead he let it sit loosely in his lap, but it called to him, using his guilt as a megaphone. “No,” he said.

“Why not? I’ll die out here.”

“If I rescue you, I’d kill you.”

Once again her body shuddered, but not from a fit like before. This time it was from tears.

“I’m scared. I don’t know why the world is like this! I can’t remember anything. It’s all just… blank. All I can remember is the philosophy. Not the classes, not the school, not how I came to be here. I don’t remember any of it!”

And at that, the Mariner felt a cold pang deep in his heart. Like him, she didn’t remember things. Had whatever happened to her, happened to him?

“I don’t know how I got here either.”

“Then let me aboard!” she wailed. “We can work it out together, you and I. Edward? Please?”

There wasn’t a chance. She was Mindless, albeit a part-time one. The question was, what was he?