What changes turn a popcorn kernel into popcorn?
In continuum mechanics, stress is a physical quantity that describes forces present during deformation. We as humans are too large for there to be statistically significant stress to be pressed or pulled upon our elastic flesh. But the maize kernel is, indeed, quite small, at an approximate 5.0 to 7.0 E -3 meters long and even shorter in width. So is my green, leaf-decorated umbrella, folded thrice into a toddler’s baseball bat, at maybe 2.0 to 3.0 E -1 meters long. If you squint, they are approximately the same shape: the bulge of the kernel and the unkempt, crumpled bulb of the umbrella; the white of the seed and the brown of the handle; the hardness; the beauty. And as the pan heats up and sizzles with oil, I walk outside the lecture hall, then the building, and am miserably welcomed by the sizzling rain. And as the raw kernels are tossed in, and the lid is closed, I prop my only source of protection from the wet open. And the heat rises, and the wind grows stronger, and the kernels shake, and I shiver from chills. And the stress pushes at the skin of orange and the textile of green. And in a clean slit of a tear across the length of the kernel, the corn-guts of the inside come spilling out with the pop of a gunshot, and the gust that tucks itself right inside of my wrongly-oriented umbrella bursts it open in a magnificent crunch of the metal rods and rip of waterproof fabric. And the chef closes his eyes to the symphony of buttery deformation, and I close mine and embrace the storm.
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Prompt from Daily Themes Week 13: Make It Strange
Write a theme using an analogy that’s perfectly apt yet effectively estranges the object compared, so that the reader might see it differently.