The Absent Answer has several rooms devoted to murder mysteries. Mumford and Mieke often choose one to pass the afternoon.
‘Why do we love these so much?’ said Mieke. ‘The form is everywhere. Many books. Most of TV.
‘I wonder why we are so enthralled.’
Mumford said, ‘I suppose mystery is familiar. The process is inherent to life. We constantly solve small everyday mysteries: where are the car keys? What does that person do for a living? We bring together small pieces of information to form larger answers. Just as, in a murder mystery, clues are assembled into the story of a murder.
‘But I also think it’s more than that. I think the form draws a connection between our everyday puzzle solving behaviour and something more profound.’
Mumford made a sweeping gesture encompassing the room and the corridor, all the rooms crammed with philosophy books. ‘That’s what I find everywhere in here.’
‘Existence itself is mysterious. This is something we feel and know. We can usually push the knowledge down, out of awareness. We have to do this in order to function.
‘But it surfaces.
‘We suspect there might be a deeper meaning. It is all around us, but just out of reach.
‘There is something we should know, something we should be seeing. It’s at the corner of our eye but as we turn towards it, it vanishes.‘
Mieke said, ‘Murder mysteries are about death too.’
‘Exactly. The other huge unknown.’
‘We are all going to die.‘
‘And nobody knows what that is.’
IMAGES: Man in street via pexels
Agatha Christies via Liamashe.com
misty scene by Dustin Scarpitti on Unsplash
The Absent Answer 