By Ariel Cheng, IV Form

The Color of Absurdism

The Redmond Prize for English Narrative, presented in memory of Henry S. Redmond, Class of 1923, is awarded to the student, who, in the judgment of the English Department, has submitted the outstanding piece of narrative during this academic year.

There you are. Just stay perched on the platform, like a bird about to take flight, for a little while longer. I’ll wade through the dusty coats and heavy smoke and excessive coffee stains. I’ll push past the glowing vending machines and clicking suitcases. While you wait, let me tell you a story. 

In the crowd there is a man cupping an orange. Do you see him? From my perspective it looks like a sun, attracting the rush-hour like a moth to a flame. We are in its orbit. Our stares swallow and gulp at the bright flesh, desperate for light and sweat and cold. Now it is sliding down his throat, peeling away like a rollercoaster over a track. But why am I still looking? The man is gone, the orange is gone, their shadows are gone. The train is gone. There and gone. 

What is orange, you ask? Have they not covered this in school yet? Orange is a color, a fruit, a symbol of prosperity. But your experience of orange – the orange you see, feel, taste – is unique. I can never know what an orange tastes like for you, or for that lady with the stroller. We are all forever stuck in the cages of our own imaginations. 

No, I am not staring into empty space. I am looking straight at you. Besides, space is never really empty – it is full of little particles of gas, randomly colliding. Stop rolling your eyes: I’m teaching you this so you can annoy your future science teachers. Listen carefully. Even a vacuum is not truly empty, if it is under the influence of a field. How curious that physicists have difficulty defining absence as much as presence. It makes you wonder what else is more absurd than it seems. 

The answer, as it turns out, is a lot. I am absurd. You are absurd. We are bags of meat, talking to ourselves, questioning the nature of our existence. 

Fine, I am avoiding you. 

You know me too well. Here is the truth, since you are asking for it. Philosophy is an excellent coping mechanism, great drug, and even better excuse. The truth is— 

“Who are you talking to?” she asks. Her hand, poised on the keypad, rests on a frequently dialed three-digit combination the same way a shell curls over a turtle. 

“Your sister,” I reply. She blinks. 

Instead of an explanation, I just offer her an orange for the journey, freshly peeled.

Ariel Cheng is a V form boarder from Taipei, Taiwan. She enjoys consuming theoretical neuroscience papers – preferably grilled – with a side of moral philosophy and dark chocolate. An aspiring AI alignment researcher, she hopes to study cognitive science and mathematics in college.