by Molly (’15)

There is a mess of pillows in the Creative Writing room. They are solid-colored squares and circles of red and black, and are indisputably chic. They are often used as headrests during Sustained Silent Reading and can also be used as devices to hide Colin with when Heather takes attendance or to throw at Justus while he is sleeping. By the end of any given day they are scattered across the carpet in a completely unorganized fashion, which Heather finds unacceptable.

Students are asked to fix the pillows, and although this particular ritual is very common and necessary, there is not yet a set of rules on how these pillows should be arranged. Some decide to organize them by color, while others go by size. The way a person organizes the pillows is a direct window into their psyche; some throw them in an indiscriminate order, while others spend many minutes aligning them.

Last Monday, our minds were opened by Tony, who runs an internship. While organizing the pillows, he suggested we spread them across the entirety of the carpet instead of piling them in a corner. The reds went on one side, the blacks on the other, and through this Tony created a work of art that was, as he said, “meant to be seen from a distance.”