One lazy weekend morning I came into the kitchen and found my roommate sitting at the counter. He was resting his cheek against his fist and was staring at this watermelon with a forlorn expression.
With a yawn and a stretch I made my way over to our refrigerator, grabbed my jug of OJ, took a swig, and sat down next to him. His face was as pitiful as ever. And since Iâm a good friendâand the whole thing was starting to get awkwardâI asked him, âYou, uh, okay?â
âI just found out this watermelon isn’t actually a watermelon,â he replied in a monotone voice.
âReally, what is it?â I asked, intrigued.
âIt’s a fake watermelon.â
âWha-what? Really?â
At this point I was genuinely confounded. I examined the melon intently now, analyzing the fractal green stripes on its surface with narrowed eyes as I started to scratch my head. I could have sworn I saw him bring the thing home in a plastic shopping bag. Wasnât it from Kroger or something? I darted my eyes around the room until I found the bag it came in. There it was crumpled along the wall amidst some empty beer bottles. Walmart. Right. Yeah. He got it at Walmart. I know thatâs fake shit central, but fake fruit? I darted my eyes back to the melon. It looked so⌠realâŚ
âSo⌠whatâs it made of?â I asked, still a tad astonished.
âA complex set of chemical compounds of some sort.â
âOh wow. So someone made it in a lab or something?â
âEffectively, yeah.â
âSo how did you find out? Does it taste terrible?â
âNo, it tastes exactly like a watermelon.â
âReally? Well, is it bad for you?â
âWell, nutritionally it’s identical to a watermelon. I’m not really worried about my health or anything and it looks the same and tastes the same and all. It’s not any of that, it’s just⌠it’s the idea, y’know?â
âSure. I mean, just the thought of people in lab coats cooking up something in a lab putting God knows what into it.â
âYeah, exactly. Although there’s no real lab coats and all, and the people didn’t really control what went into it directly.â
âWow, that sounds even worse! How do you know it’s even safe to eat?â
âWell, there’s a lot of testing involved, regulatory agencies, and people have more or less been eating these things for thousands of years, and while there’s different varietiesââ
âWait, hold on… thousands of years?â
âWell, yeah. Like I said, I’m not really worried about any deleterious effects. It’s justââ
âBut I thought you said they made this thing in a lab?â
âWell, I said effectively, yeah. I mean agriculture is an ongoing experiment, and farms are essentially the earliest organic laboratories and all.â
âOkay, so I’m confused. You said this was a fake watermelon.â
âYeah, it is.â
âHow?â
âWell, hereâŚâ
With that he dumped the sizable melon into my scrambling hands.
âOof!â I exclaimed with the unexpected weight.
âFeels pretty solid, eh?â
âWell, yeah⌠It feels like a watermelon.â At this point it should probably go without saying that I was incredibly incredulous, but I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Iâve never known my friend to be exactly dishonest, but he can be a tad⌠eccentric.
âWell, thatâs just the thing. Itâs really not.â
âHow do you mean?â
âThat whole weight youâre feeling is just an affect created by a series of electromagnetic fields interacting with each other and the gravitational field of the Earth.â
At this point my credulity was being stretched beyond belief, but I like to think of myself as an open-minded gent and Iâm willing to listen to all kinds of batshit crazy things that come out of the head of my roommate or anyone elseâif only for the entertainment factor alone. And so I replied with the most suitable words I could think of for the occasion: âGo onâŚâ
âThis melon is actually mostly comprised of empty space. The only reason it feels solid at all is because of these energy fields repelling against each other at particular proximities. The only reason it looks the color it does is because of particular chemical properties that cause it to reflect certain wavelengths of light. The only reason it tastes the way it does is because these fields send signals to your brain when they interact with your tongue.â
âWaitâthis melon is sending signals to my brain?â
âWell, not directly. And itâs not as though thereâs some kind of intent exactly. Well⌠unless consciousness is actually innate to matter or defines matter fundamentally on a subatomic level or something and âintentâ as an aspect of consciousnessââ
âOkay, okay, okay, but waitâŚâ
And at that last word, my nutty friend did exactly that. Silence sat between us. His eyes shifted back and forth in dull expectation while my own peered off into the distance. After a moment, it clicked.
âAre you just describing⌠everything?â I asked with furrowed brow, annoyed at the thought.
âThatâs the thing dudeâŚâ he said with wide, almost pleading, eyes, ââŚI donât know if anything is really realâŚâ
My eyes crossed a little before I rolled them around. And with a sigh I stood back up.
âWhere are you going?â
âNowhere, obviously. Space is just a function of time, which itself only really exists in our minds. At the speed of light, everything is flat and thereâs nowhere to go and nothing happens.â
I walked to the fridge and out of the corner of my eye, I could see his eyes widen and his jaw go slack. With a small chuckle to myself I put the OJ back, grabbed myself a carton of cottage cheese and made my way back to my room.
In the other room, the melon dropped to the floor, but there was no one around to hear it, so it didnât make a sound. And that was convenient, since I was busy watching these really engaging patterns of light at the time.
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