Sensibility

Sensibility
-- by Amanda Davis
The putrid stench of rotten salmon wafts through the boardwalk, permeating the
Five Star Café with a fishy odor. I stand, chopping red peppers for tomorrow's soba salad, in the back of the minuscule kitchen. Adam, a pretty boy with cropped hair, stands beside me, relating tales of snowboarding in Sweden while slicing provolone cheese. Tourists walk by the café, some peering in through the windows, others interested only in fish swimming upstream – clicks of cameras capture the endless
struggle for survival. It is 3:00 in the afternoon, the lunch rush has died down, the
evening rush has not yet started. I relax in the rhythmic trance of the downward
motion of the knife, as I watch the red peppers fall into precise slices. The door
opens. A customer.
Adam looks toward me. "Your turn."
I nod, pull myself away from the peppers, and turn to the register. A man stands,
looking at me. His eyes, hidden under tangled gray hair, catch mine, and my eyes drop, down to his arms. Spider lines of old tattoos stand out, words and pictures and
symbols sketched on thin, almost emaciated arms. I know I am staring. I look up.
"Can I help you?" I brightly ask.
He looks at me warily. "A cup of coffee."
Adam hands him a cup and goes back to slicing.
"That will be one dollar, sir." He fumbles in his pocket, and pulls out a wrinkled dollar bill. He extends his hand, then – suddenly – pulls back. His face changes, and he
leans toward me, casting a frightened glance at the cash register.
"Is that – is that --" he stumbles over his words. "Is that alive?"
I look to the machine. Its common gray exterior rests on the counter, the green numerals displaying the amount owed. I think of my first days at the Five Star, when
I was sure that it was alive – a nefarious machine manipulating the costs to cause
my humiliation. As the days proceeded, we slowly gained a trust for one another, and its once evil demeanor had changed – to that of an ordinary machine. I think of the world – controlled by machines, the cars and computers and clocks – would they,
could they, rise up against us? The espresso machine is behind me, it could attack – the hot water spurting forth, blinding me as the cash register falls and knocks me
onto the floor as I – No, of course not.
Sensibility wins again.
"No, sir. It's just a machine," I explain. He eyes me, untrusting of my words, in need
of reassurance. "It takes money." I take his dollar, and show him how, with a push of a button, I can place the money inside. He takes his coffee with both hands, and
sips it.
"A machine…" he quietly repeats.
The cash register sits, silent on the counter.
ANALYSIS
In both subject matter and style, "Sensibility" is a breath of fresh air. Imagine reading stacks of essays about mundane topics, and then coming upon one about
red peppers, provolone cheese and a cash register – how could it not stand out?
Rather than describing a life-altering experience or an influential relationship, the
writer reveals herself and her talents indirectly by bringing us into a captivating
scene.
With the skills of a creative writer, the author uses crisp detail to make the Five Star
Café spring to life and to place us in the seaside kitchen. Even if all the essay does
is grab our attention and force us to remember its author, this essay is a success. But "Sensibility" has other strengths. The dialogue with the emaciated man raises
provocative questions about modern life. How do we relate to the machines around us? How does "sensibility" change in this new environment? And how do machines
affect our relations with people of different classes and backgrounds? The essay does not pretend to answer these questions, but in raising them it reveals its author to possess an impressive degree of sophistication and, at bottom, an interesting
mind.
All the same, "Sensibility" is not without its faults. For one, the scene seems so
surreal that we are led to wonder whether this is a work of fiction. And admissions
essay will be stronger the more we can trust that we are hearing the author's honest, personal voice; the fictional quality here jeopardizes that. Moreover, although the author proves that she is thoughtful and talented and has a vivid imagination, many questions are left unanswered. Does the author want to be a writer? How would her
creativity translate into a contribution to the community? We would need to rely on the rest of her application to fill in those gaps. Still, on the whole, "Sensibility" is successful both because of and in spite of its riskiness.