Picture a cherry pie: a vibrant symphony of a culinary sonnet. It is the delicate embrace of a flaky crust, the warmth of sugar-kissed fruit wrapped in golden layers. It’s a journey of flavor that tells a sweet, nostalgic story. For many, it represents the innocence of childhood, summer days, fireflies in jars, and family dinners on the Fourth of July. A night when the sky blooms with fireworks, the air rings with laughter, and the table ends with cherry pie.

Now picture violence. 

Picture red, but not the red of cherries. Picture blood, soaking into soil. Soldiers vanish into the pages of history, their absence a quiet scream echoing through the generations. The narrative shifts: from the comfort of pastry to the cruelty of conflict. America, as we know it, was built through wars, violent, devastating wars. It became a nation because of one so-called “glorious” victory. But what, I often wonder, is glorious about death? About trauma? 

And then there are guns. The loaded question of American identity. Guns have become an unofficial emblem of patriotism, hauntingly inseparable from the flag itself. Each one, a metal relic of our bloody inheritance. Every trigger pulled is a goodbye, a future severed, a family shattered. Yet in America, guns are as ingrained in tradition as that flaky crust on the Fourth of July. The gun is the crust: hard, protective, the first thing touched and the first to crumble.

Every child who bites into a cherry pie is tasting history, a sweet, symbolic inheritance. That bite might bring peace, a rush of sugar and memory. But that same child, full of innocence, might walk into school the next morning, unaware that today is the day everything changes. Because here, in the land of fireworks and pies, one bullet can rewrite an entire life.

School shootings are no longer rare headlines, they are lived realities. In this country, some children are taught how to hide before they’re taught long division. Parents send their kids to school with backpacks, not knowing if they'll ever unzip them again. The pain of losing a child is indescribable. There is no comparison. No wound deeper. 

That child loses everything: their present, their future, their right to grow up.

They will never graduate.

They will never see the world.

They will never become who they were meant to be.  

The cherry, bittersweet on its own, turns tragic the moment it touches the crust. In that moment, the pie becomes a crime scene. The red on the plate is no longer just fruit. 

America is the home of the cherry pie, an oven that continues to bake these contrasting shades of red. And yet we continue to ask: why? Why is there no change? Why are our children dying in classrooms, while lawmakers debate abstract freedoms? Why is the root of the problem so carefully protected? 

Why is America so devoted to preserving this cherry pie?

Why does it keep baking, even as the filling begins to rot?

The temperature keeps rising.

The guns keep winning.

The lives keep losing. 

And the cherry pie keeps baking.                                  

In America, there are always two sides:

Republican or Democrat.

Man or woman.

Good or evil.

Pretty or ugly.

A vibrant red.

A violent red.

--

Aashka Kancharla

Student Researcher | Future Architect & Advocate for Design Justice

"Designing with empathy, writing with purpose."