“The Department of Inconvenient Enlightenment” by Barry Denson

In the topologically unstable suburb of Lower Upper Middle Thought, there exists a building that only appears when no one’s looking for it. It’s a squat, confused-looking structure with an architectural style best described as beige regret. This is the headquarters of the Department of Inconvenient Enlightenment, a bureaucratic backwater tasked with discovering Truth — but only the sort that makes people wince slightly.

The Department’s most prominent (and indeed only) employee was a man named Clive Marbles. Clive had the sort of face that looked like it had been quietly disappointed by most sandwiches, and a walk that suggested he was always just about to explain something tedious about printer settings.

Clive had one tremendous strength: he was brilliant at identifying other people’s mistakes. He once won an award for pointing out a typo in the preamble to the Universal Declaration of Consensus. He was the reason most toaster instruction manuals now include the phrase “Do not attempt to toast emotions.”

But Clive had one dreadful, cataclysmic weakness.

He couldn’t understand metaphors.

He once sued a poet for describing the moon as "a silver coin tossed into the well of night," arguing it was both fiscally irresponsible and astronomically inaccurate.

And so, the universe — which, as we know, has a wicked sense of humour and an excellent filing system — decided to teach him a lesson.

One Tuesday (probably), Clive received an urgent memo written in Cosmic Uppercase: “YOU ARE TO LOCATE THE TRUTH. IT IS INSIDE YOU.”

Naturally, Clive assumed this was either a medical emergency or a terribly vague address. He promptly had a CT scan, which revealed only a half-digested crouton and a worrying number of IKEA assembly instructions lodged in his psyche.

Still, duty compelled him onward.

He consulted philosophers, who told him the truth was “beyond language.” He consulted IT support, who told him to “turn his beliefs off and on again.” He even consulted a small child, who said: “The truth is you’re a bit weird, mister.”

After seven increasingly esoteric misadventures (including a brief stint as a sentient font), Clive found himself in the Office of Spiritual Misdelivery — a room full of truths that had been posted to the wrong realities.

There, in a filing cabinet labelled Misunderstood Revelations (Uncategorised), he found a note.

It read:

“We are led to truth not by certainty, but by the ridiculous, the misheard, the typo, the awkward silence, the incorrect kettle, the broken shoelace, the sandwich you didn’t order but ate anyway. Truth hides in the flaws because perfection is boring and never has anything interesting to say.”

It was signed: You, Eventually.

Clive read it three times. On the fourth, it made sense. (He hated that.)

He returned home. Threw out his manuals. Kept the metaphors. Bought a toaster that only toasted paradoxes.

And from that day forward, Clive Marbles became not a Seeker of Truth, but a Bumbler Into It — a profession far more noble and considerably better for one’s digestion.

His weekly radio show, “I Might Be Wrong (But Here’s a Biscuit)”, ran for twelve excellent seasons and was later adapted into a cloud formation over Belgium.