Essay Test: Do fairy tales count as true?

A Fairy Tale For Dialecticians

(An appreciation for George Steiner)

At first, you should cuddle yourself against this wordless yet whispering wind, then wind your arms close around your shoulders until you feel like a soldier with his pack after the uphill fact of the last few miles of a forced march. Then, you must travel around the world alone with only two rather uninspired metal stools painted gunmetal blue. You’ll need to think about the sky at times, more often than not at night. Water too, should occupy a beach somewhere inside your body. You must travel using the stools as crutches, one hand on one smooth and cool seat. 

Make sure, or course, that your feet never touch the ground. You will find that hindsight is best until you find the proper way to send out scouts. When you do, shift your weight so that your eyes can leave your body behind, become twin suns forcing the earth awake when you finally arrive. You might arch your neck until your ears fall to the ground. Wait until they hear the seminal heartbeat or the breaking of bones; only then will it be safe to move on. When you reach a large body of water allow your lips to slip from your face and play like twin porpoises around a ship until some other form of transport arrives and anchors for a few days. 

A bit more difficult, but all the more necessary, is the trial your nose must undergo after you’ve found a way to let it think it escaped unnoticed. It must somehow burrow in the loam of an ancient oak for a few weeks, taking detailed notes in an unbreakable code. 

The last fact-finding mission, while certainly the most dangerous, can also be the most seductive, should you survive it. Using the sharp edges of your stools cut a pattern, preferably one you’ve seen often enough in a crowd, into your skin until this permits you to unzip it relatively cleanly. Allow it to hang in the wind a few days until it dries completely. When it is dry, wait for a particularly cold day and set it adrift in the midst of a red-tinged and whipped gust. 

Bruegel's "Fall of Icarus"

Watch it as it sails higher and higher, as it sifts shadows from clouds. Once it is out of sight you must make absolutely sure never to fall asleep until it has completed its secret mission around or through each shifting continent. Should you be asleep when it returns it will simply move on and you will never meet your intended fate.

I trust you are ready and I wish you the greatest of luck. Any who have returned have said this is the only way to outlive your shame and to still survive the silence inside the Sirens’ song.

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Compare this essay with the most famous admission essay ever. Are there similarities? It certainly has a different tone, but is it still an effective essay? 

If you were an admission officer at a highly selective school what would be your reaction? 

Is this fiction or non fiction?

George Steiner is one of the most respected literary critics of the last 50 years. His "language and silence" is a hallmark of great literary interpretation. Does this information help explain the essay?

How would you describe the applicant based on this essay?

Is this an inappropriate essay to submit for admission?

If yes, why? If no, why?

Peabody and Sherman