How and why The Adequacy bought a hat

By Simon Petrie

The Adequacy checked its reflection. It accepted what it saw in the mirror — were this not so, it would have been a crisis of identity —  but just the same, it felt something could be added. A hat. Headgear would lift its appearance, would convey something that The Adequacy was currently missing. Headgear would give The Adequacy presence, a distinctive air, an attitude. Cachet. Verve. A sense of style.

But there was no hat, here where The Adequacy was. A hat would need to be purchased. There were shops, nearby, which sold such things — or so it thought, but then it had never really needed to pay attention to such things before now. In any event, The Adequacy hated shops. They were all too peopley, even the self-serve ones.

Then it remembered there were online stores now. Online stores were good, The Adequacy reflected. On the internet, no-one knows you’re a personification of a subjective abstract concept.

It searched for hat stores, and there were many. Too many, really, when all one needed was one (1) hat.

But what sort of hat? Again, there were many. Too many, really. The Adequacy did not want to make a statement, The Adequacy just wished to wear a hat. Not a sombrero. Not a fez. Not a top hat. Not a stetson. Not a cloche. Not a tricorne. Not a deerstalker. Nothing wide-brimmed, or too tall, or too ostentatiously shaped, or too loudly coloured. A trilby, The Adequacy decided. A grey-brown trilby, the colour and shape of respectable mediocrity. And nothing too expensive, but not too cheap either. 

Size medium, of course.

The Adequacy checked its bank account before it placed the order. It had enough.

Time passed. 

When the hat arrived, it was squashed from transit; it was blue; it was size large, and loose on The Adequacy’s head. Nothing about the hat, in fact, was right. But The Adequacy decided it would make do, because that is what it always did. It put the new hat on the highest shelf, in its crumpled hatbox, and never took it down again.

There was just enough left in The Adequacy’s account to buy some paint, with which it painted over the mirror.

About the Author

Born and raised in New Zealand, Simon Petrie now lives in Australia, where he is paid to be careful with words.

Aside from AntiSF, his work has appeared in Overland, Aurealis, Kaleidotrope, Sybil's Garage and elsewhere.

He is a three-time winner of the Sir Julius Vogel award and received a coveted Dishonourable Mention in the 2012 Bulwer-Lytton competition.