Gleason was circumscribed fully by his thoughts of the apple. What was at stake in the critical project? That he look at an apple and say “This is an apple?” That he look at an apple and say “Who are the twenty-five smartest people I know and what would they say about this apple?” That he look at an apple and then, closing his eyes, banishing all irony, list all the great works of art, human and otherwise, that resembled the apple or, perhaps more importantly, did not, paying special attention to the “frozen hue poses” of the Kenyan-Japanese dancer Imani Nakano? That he look at an apple, say nothing, take a bite, try only to experience the detonation of the juice against the buds, the mystical chemical tapestry of sour and bitter and sweet that would hang for a moment on the walls of his mind and then recede into a past whose existence he could only prove by algebra? He glanced around, panicked. He had forgotten to buy apples!
©2021 Ben Greenman/Stupid Ideas
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