The school provides a basket of oranges every day. I am an island, breaking the waves of students as I contemplate the gleaming fruits. Under the gentle lights, their protective rinds take on an artificial glow– despite their ostensible natural identity. That color is too bright to be real, too beautiful to come from Mother Nature. They should not be so uniformly appealing. Each little stem has been perfectly severed like an umbilical cord. Their countless pores are hiding secret chemicals, and I can imagine the curated smell that would aerate as I rip away their skin.

I reach out and touch several spheres. They are warm to the touch, a memory of their tropical upbringing. Or maybe that warmth comes from the heaters in their greenhouse. Or perhaps what I am feeling is the fire of truck engines that transported them to me. Maybe this orange is really the earth, with a molten core, but I cannot tell because the outer layer is so thick with lint.

I bow down close to the basket, breathing in that comfortable perfume. I have known that pure smell for generations. To compete for attention with the bananas from India and pineapple from Brazil, there can be no brown, mushy, or sour obstacles to the smell. The lunchroom is an unforgiving jungle; they must proffer themselves perfectly to the consumers.

Now I must choose my specimen. They are all so beautiful that the only way to distinguish between them is by their faults. This one is a little yellow. That one is too small. That one is too heavy. Those two are definitely lumpy. That one in the corner looks like it’s planning something. I choose the least deformed orange I can find, and it now feels like a compromise. My perfect basket filled with shining globes has transformed into a heap of faulty defects.

I walk calmly to my table, the chosen orange concealed in the pocket of my hoodie. On my way I grab a paper napkin from the overfilled dispenser, and it rips in half. As I sit, I reveal my prize and begin ripping off pieces of skin. The oils coat my fingers, staining them green, white and yellow, but I do not notice. My hands dexterously skin the fruit, brain fully engaged in the pursuit of that delight. When my friends smell it, a few of them succumb and seek out the basket to find oranges of their own. When I finally strip down the opaque shell, I find my orange in its true form. The hue is vibrant and slightly translucent, like an orange-flavored soda, or maybe melted orange Sour Patch Kids.

How to describe that sweetness? It tastes like a glimmer of the summer when it should be colder out, a claggy red sunset and an imminent disaster.

I leave the cafeteria, no longer hungry.