UNTITLED

Annya Kong

7th Grade • Hawthorne

Stephen Hawking once said that, “A few years ago, the City Council of Monza, Italy, barred pet owners from keeping goldfish in curved bowls...saying that it is cruel to keep a fish in a bowl with curved sides because, gazing out, the fish would have a distorted view of reality. But how do we know we have the true, undistorted picture of reality?”

Well, Anne Way Taylor was pretty sure she knew. Knew that everyone was living in fishbowls, although probably not in the way that Stephen Hawkings was thinking of when he said that particular quote. Everyone in their own heads, and being all over themselves talking about how vast the world is, how they wish they knew more about it, how the universe is infinite, blah blah blah. As if they got it. No one got it, of course. No one knew what they didn’t know. And if that wasn’t distorted as (bleep), then Anne didn’t know what was. No swearing, Anne Taylor, she thought, and sighed. She hated rules.

Well, not really. Anne just thought that, in the end, it didn’t really matter. In the end, the universe is composed of circumstance and circumstance didn’t give a (bleep) about rules.

Anne sighed again. She sighed a lot. Proof: she turned to the clock on her wall, which read 8:43 PM. 2 sighs in one minute (disclaimer: no, Anne didn’t sigh twice a minute, but this certainly wasn’t her record).

Anne glanced down at the paper on her desk and sighed

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again. In two hours she had gotten virtually nothing done. The paper was mostly blank, except for a few faded out pencil lines where she had started to draw and then furiously erased.

Her surrealist artwork was due tomorrow, and she had nothing done.

It wasn’t like Anne was the kind of person who waited until the last minute to do her homework. It was just, if there was anything Anne was passionate about (you know, besides the whole thing about how humans walked around in metaphorical fishbowls that distorted their reality enough for them to be unable to fathom anything that didn’t already exist in their brains, making everything seem out of proportion in the fact that they, the 7 billion+ dominating species on the earth, were really not dominating anything, and were infinitely smaller than atoms in comparison to the infinitely large world, and that the fishbowls also prevented them from making true, true, true non-physical and empathetic bonds with other people because of inability to understand them the way one understands themselves - besides that), she loved art. Unfortunately, this prevented her from doing it efficiently, because she was always scrapping her ideas on what to draw. Every other subject was fine, really. Anne was a reasonably bright child, so she could finish most of the assignments without trying her absolute best and still get an A.

It was all just circumstance. She was born a regular baby but happened to get parents who tried to get her to be passionate about learning. She pretended, for their sake. They, being stuck in their own consciousness and being only able to see her spend her minimal free time on Khan Academy, learning math and science and whatever that site had to offer, knew nothing of her

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lack of passion in those studies and congratulated themselves on a parenting well done. Not that Anne thought her parents foolish or anything. They both had steady jobs - her mother a dentist and her father, a dance choreographer, both of which required a fair amount of competence. And she could hardly blame them for living in fishbowl-ish-ness. How could she? It wasn’t their fault, just circumstance that the world was a place where the order and science of biology and the brain dictated that every sentient organism could never look into the mind of another organism, nor understand how much they did not know enough for the average person to even truly fathom the former, and then realize how much they probably did not understand about what went on in the head of their daughter.

Anne thought all of this while gazing out the window in front of her desk, which opened into the street, which even at 8:44 PM was bustling with just as many cars as it was at broad daylight at 3:00 PM (Anne would know. She spent most of her day at this desk). She sighed. She loved her parents, really. But whenever she tried to talk about how everyone lived their own separate lives in fishbowl-ness, and questioned aloud whether the separation came from the fishbowl or the fishbowl was a result of humans’ inability to ultimately care for more than themselves, they would look confused, then look at each other, then say things like, “Oh, sweetie,” or “Oh, honey” over and over. It was a little infuriating. Luckily, Anne knew to give up on it a long time ago.

“Right, art,” Anne realized and said to herself. The project was due tomorrow, Monday, and she had exactly 45 minutes to get it done.

Anne tried to think, but all she could think of was fishbowls

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and their metaphorical resonance. She sat, staring at her paper, drifting in and out of intent (but useless) focus, until it was nine o’clock. Still, all she could think of were humans in fishbowls, and knowing that her parents were adamant about their ninethirty bedtime schedule even though Anne was fourteen, Anne sighed and began to draw.

The next morning, Anne was bustled off to Wetherbury Academy at 8:40 AM, had a test in math at 9:10, a discussion in reading about the green light in The Great Gatsby at 10:30, and at 12:30 PM ate a rather bland cream cheese bagel and a few baby carrots, plus vanilla yogurt, that her parents had packed her for lunch, and then, ah bliss, at 1:05 PM, it was time for art.

Anne took out her surrealist drawing homework and stared at it as Mr. Benalind, her art teacher, came around nodding and saying, “good job” as he collected the artwork and made checkmarks on his clipboard. As he did, Anne’s eyes traveled a little blankly over the fishbowls she had drawn, and the sky and the trees and —

“Well, this is interesting,” said Mr. Benalind. Anne jerked in her seat in surprise. Mr. Benalind swiped the paper off her desk and stared at it, frowning a little. He made a swift mark on his clipboard, and continued to proceed through the room, collecting the rest of the papers.

He put the pile of artwork on his desk. “These are all great!” he said. Anne noticed one of the papers were separated from the pile. “Well, mostly. The non-existent ones I’m not so sure about.” Some of the class tittered with laughter. “These are all good first drafts. I’ll pass them back around. In the meantime I want you guys to brainstorm one little bit of symbolism to put in your

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work. Some of you might have done this already, which is great.” Mr. Benalind’s eyes found Anne’s. “If that’s the case, you can work on your next draft or add even more symbolism. At the end of this you’ll write briefly about your surrealist piece and say if it came to you in a dream, or if you were inspired by melting cheese.....” The class laughed a little again. “I’m serious. Salvador Dali drew his surrealist art piece because of melting cheese. Anyway, you also have to write a little about the symbolism in your piece, what it means to you, etc.” As the class bustled with conversation, Mr. Benalind passed back the homework.

Anne didn’t get hers back.

She approached Mr. Benalind at his desk once she was sure he had nothing left to pass out. He was bending over the paper that wasn’t in the pile, looking thoughtful.

“Ah, Anne,” he said as she approached. “I wanted to talk to you about your surrealist piece,” he said before she could open her mouth. “The fishbowl thing.” He stared at the paper - Anne’s paper — at the people, proportionate and otherwise normal except for their heads, which were in fishbowls, distorted and wild, with wide eyes. They walked in a single-file, staying distant from each other, heads bowed.

“Anne, I wonder what you think of the term ‘community’,” Mr. Benalind said abruptly. Startled, it took Anne a few seconds to reply. When she did, she said this:

“I don’t know, Mr. Benalind. Um, community is where people who like and do the same thing feel a certain connection with each other enough to socially interact.” Anne paused. “However, I’d like to argue that that connection is mostly meaningless,

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because since everybody is living inside their own heads - well, just because three people like to draw, doesn’t mean that they feel some sort of energy towards each other. In fact they won’t, because humans live in their separate metaphorical fishbowls ” Anne gestured to her paper “- and therefore are usually emotionally distant from each other. Community seems more like an obligation than anything else. Like, just because my parents and I like reading, doesn’t mean that we all feel some great connection to each other, and that’s why at 7:00 PM we all read for half an hour in the living room, and all of a sudden we understand each other deeply, united by the common goal of finishing reading all the books in our bookshelf. So communities are actually just a group of people who like the same thing and feel obliged to point it out and start a club or whatever.”

Mr. Benalind looked at Anne. “I think you don’t quite understand what community is, Anne.”

Anne sighed. There was no singular meaning of community, nor anything non-physical.She didn’t say anything, though.

“I don’t want you to do surrealism this week, Anne,” said Mr. Benalind.

Anne’s eyes widened in shock. “Huh?” she demanded, feeling a twinge of disbelief and also anger at her teacher. “Mr. Benalind,” she began, fighting to keep her voice from raising, “Just because you and I have different ideas on —”

“I want you to do an art piece on community instead.”

Anne was speechless.

Mr. Benalind gave her a look that made it clear she was to go

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back to her seat. Anne obliged, still shocked, and stared at the wall with a growing feeling of helplessness for the rest of the class.

When she returned home at 4:30 PM, she did her homework a lot slower than usual, thinking about Mr. Benalind’s assignment. She ate a very hurried dinner and sat down before a sheet of blank paper, staring at it until her mother called her.

“Reading time, honey!” she called down the hallway.

“Not now,” Anne said, halfway through finishing a hasty sketch.

“It’s seven!”

“Not now!” she yelled in irritation. Uh-oh. No shouting. Anne never raised her voice in front of her parents.

She could hear them speaking hushed voices down the hall. She was now too furious to think. She wadded up her paper.

Her father entered her room. “Anne, please come and read.”

“No, I’m doing homework,” Anne said. No talking back. She had already broken two rules. In the end it didn’t matter, she reminded herself. The world was composed of circumstance.

She felt a boiling feeling in her throat.

Her father quietly crossed the room. “Anne —”

Anne wadded up her paper and threw it at him. Three rules. “Homework,” she repeated.

Her father looked shocked. “No throwing,” he warned her. Anne didn’t respond. Her father picked up the crumpled piece of paper and unfolded it.

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“I have to draw a community piece for art,” she said, feeling her face flush. “Give it back.”

“Community?” Her father stared at the paper. He sounded sad.

Anne looked at him.

“Sweetie,” he began. He set the paper on her desk and smoothed it out. Anne looked at the drawing. People with glasses in one group. People with basketballs in another. People with books, people with paintbrushes. People, people, people. She drew different colored lights around each group.

“This....” Her father looked at Anne. “It’s not like this.”

Anne didn’t say anything.

“Come outside with me,” her father said.

“It’s late.”

“You can put on your coat.”

“It’s reading time.”

“You can skip it today.”

That shut Anne up. She stood up numbly and snatched the paper from her father’s hand, tossing it in the garbage. Her father didn’t say anything.

Anne followed him outside.

“See those stars?” her father said, pointing to the sky.

“I would see more if humans didn’t pollute everything,” Anne said, determined to stay grumpy.

Her father laughed. “True. But that’s not my point. My point

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is that, even though those stars are light years away from each other, even though the ones we see shine brighter than the ones we don’t, they are still part of the same sky.”

“Bull—” Anne cut herself off. “So? That’s like saying humans all live on earth.”

“We do.”

“Yeah, but —” Anne sighed. “It’s all just nature and evolution and stuff. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re still all different. We’re still all trapped in our own heads.”

“Yes, we are.” Anne looked at him, startled. “I listen to you, Anne, I do. I get what you are saying. Does that mean I get everything that goes on inside your head? No. But I think I, as your father, understand this: Anne, you feel like you are different, and you hate it. You hate feeling like you are trapped inside your own head and being the only one who knows it. You long for someone who sees the world the way you see it.” Anne couldn’t speak. “And there are people who do. You, Anne, have a mind that shines brighter than most, that stands out. Do you think you are the only star that shines like you do? Of course not. Do you think those stars are just like you? Of course not! But internally, there is something about each of them that fits, Anne. Different stars, same constellation. Different stars, same sky. You think that community means everyone is like everyone else. You think that to be a community, you have to be the exact same kind of fish to compensate for being in different fishbowls. You are very, very wrong. What does community mean, Anne?”

At 7:23 PM, Anne apologized to her mother. At 8:30, she finished her drawing. Seven humans with fishbowl heads. Different races and backgrounds and lives. Standing in one huge

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fishbowl. Looking up at the stars. She wrote a note:

Community is where different people with different backgrounds and different lives see things in the same way as other people. Where their vision is distorted, but similar. Where they live their own lives, but live them together.

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