Don't Forget About It by Olivia Farrar (19, Colorado)

“Forget about it,” says the depressed husband to the wife, says the child to their parents, as they all sit at a kitchen table somewhere. The wood that composes that table probably witnessed more conversations, more lively happenings in its oak-tree form. But as the enormous tree becomes chopped down, polished, and refined into a smaller and more unnatural form, it becomes apparent that the reduction from gargantuan to miniscule these days is commonplace.

Another example of this aforementioned reduction: the gradual loss of genuine talking, and hearts being worn on the cardigan sleeve at supper. Instead of reverberations of white-teeth and tobacco-tinted laughter, the only thing one can hear are prongs screeching when they drag along the china plate. Even then, the person almost realizes their mistake, and brings the silverware back to their seasonless cut of steak.

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Loud! screams the language of anxiously bitten lips and clutching onto tongues that salivate for substantial sentences.

Glassware does not bounce off each other anymore, and the rims of drinking ware do not kiss one another before they are sipped from.

In another home, several years prior, hearing the words “cheers” at a dinner party that sat under a darkening dusk felt like that tomorrow would be an eternal sunny day. “Cheers” meant that the joy was boundless in the socialization that was shared.

The wife smiles at this memory of yesteryear, and she implores her husband to indeed rupture the silent surface that holds the contents within. The parents promise their children to not let their long commute stifle their communication, nor their compassion.
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Instead of shouting angry words at horrible drivers and the crumbling world, they will convert their passion into rebuilding the universe with the recreation of the idealistic, enchanting evening.