Glimpse of Silence

"A philosophical realization and the emotional rollercoaster that ensues"

The Vanguard

Weird things have been happening to me recently.

“... and I’ll have milk tea,” I said. I finally decided what to order after spending three minutes in front of the checkout counter contemplating whether to get food or not. 

“Do you want straight tea with milk or royal milk tea?” said the cashier. She looked young but relatively confident, as if she had a line memorized for any interaction with a customer.

“Um... what’s the difference?” 

Her confidence disappeared from her eyes. “Uhh…” She started to look around, only to find no one there to help her. She looked under the counter in hopes of finding something. Maybe a hint.

After what felt like a minute of silence, she finally started talking.

“Straight tea is straight tea, and… royal milk tea is more… royal?”

I laughed and admired her for trying with what she had.

“I’ll have royal milk tea then.”

In a warm room in a chain cafe, I ate pasta, drank an iced royal milk tea that tasted of cardboard, and started editing a college application essay that was due in a week. It was a Friday in the last days of fall. I wrote them absent-mindedly; it was something that became a habit after months of writing them. It wasn’t something I hated, but somehow it wasn’t something I chose to do either. I was just like that cashier who had memorized every line. The thought terrified me.

Two weeks later, I had the last day of classes at my high school. In our last class, we discussed freedom and desire. Desire for freedom is taught to us by our system. That’s how we feed into it which feeds back into us. A desire for freedom, a dream to be freed from our day-to-day lives someday, is an illusion that can barely be achieved, and even if someone manages to escape from societal oppression into the state of freedom, they can’t survive because freedom requires one to be independent of communities and the rest of society. Humans can’t survive without one another. The system is a trap. Even the education we were given can only achieve a glimpse of liberation that stays in the classroom. Is critical thinking necessary if we can’t put it into action? We never came to a conclusion.

I went down the stairs to the Underground. I was about to start my last journey of going home on a normal day of school when suddenly my legs started to feel heavy. Step by step, they became heavier. I slowed down by the side of the platform and waited for my train. My thoughts were still running. The announcement, in a tense voice, warned us to stay behind the white line. The train came in and filled the space. The platform became a small, rectangular tunnel to trap me and the rest of the faces there. The doors opened with a scream. People came out, and the faces went inside the train as if to escape from being confined in the space. A loud, intimidating chime urged the last-minute newcomers to race into the train. The doors closed. The train left.

I stood there to feel the station quiet again. Again, and again. For fifteen minutes, I stood there. Dry tears ran down the cheeks under my surgical mask. I felt like throwing up. Our lives are insane. We are constantly being urged to do something.

I left the station to feel the air again. I stood outside for two hours until a stranger started talking to me. He said he was a teacher. He told me to go home because it was late. He said he had a car. I started walking as I cried. My cheeks started to feel pain as new tears rolled over the ones that had already been dried up by the cold air. I couldn’t feel my feet anymore, and my phone was about to die. Out of everything, what hurt the most was that I knew this moment was going to be a moment. I can’t survive on my own, we talked about it. I laughed and cried. 

Being a fool as I was, it was a “sane reaction to an insane situation,” according to some philosopher, I remembered. Maybe being a fool in a glimpse of silence from time to time isn’t a bad idea. I should never forget this feeling, I thought. I felt close to the cashier from that chain cafe. 

I went on the train at the next station I saw. The train carried me underground, and it carried me above the ground near the edge of Tokyo. The city lights looked ugly yet beautiful. 

So I closed my eyes.

(Published Jan 15, 2021)