Challenge
by Eileen R. Tabios

 

from ORPHANED ALGEBRA

"...you will engage in error analysis and mathematical reasoning to build critical thinking"
—About California Math 1 by Ron Larson, Laurie Boswell, Timothy D. Kanold and Lee Stiff (McDougal Littell, a division of Houghton Mifflin, Evanston, IL, 2008)

CHALLENGE: Sam and Elwin have lunch. Each agrees to pay half of the $30 cost. Sam has two $10 bills and Elwin has a $20 bill and two $5 bills. Is there a way for both to pay without getting change? Explain your reasoning:  No.  No, there is no way for Sam and Elwin to pay without receiving change. There is no way for either to pay. Sam and Elwin do not look their age. Like me, they stopped growing for five years. We know that imagination will not succeed in alchemizing the air too heavy on our palms into a currency translatable into food. Into that much-recommended protein.  We pass by windows barring us from coveted fruit, sliced meats, pastries, not to mention skateboards, coats, shoes,...and we see our reflections. Our bodies prove the limits of Desire. The irrelevance of Anguish. The utter ineptness of Hope.  No, Sam and Elwin will not be able to pay without requiring change. Change, and other left-overs, are all they know.  They have mortgaged all that their bodies can afford.  They cannot pay anymore. My reasoning?  My own transparent bones are proof.  Almost evaporated by ancient knowledge, I am twelve years old.

—from ORPHANED ALGEBRA, a manuscript-in-progress, and first published in Fiera Lingue’s Health & Illness Issue, Eds. Anny Ballardini and Obododimma Oha.

© Eileen R. Tabios

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