Can you beat a first grader’s intense reply to this ‘simple’ riddle?

A teacher shared an interesting response that one of his students gave to a riddle he asked. While the riddle was easy, the response of the child was profound. Soon, the post went viral and left Twitterati wondering.

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Profundity knows no age! (Source: Bret Turner/Twitter)

It isn’t rare for children to be curious about things around them and come up with questions. Moreover, when it comes to imagination, they do go all out of the box, often leaving adults wondering where they come up with those ideas. Something similar happened when a teacher asked his students a simple riddle but a particular response from one of them left him stunned. Bret Turner, a Twitter user, posted a riddle on his account and along with the picture shared the response of his student. In his post he wrote, “The first guess from one of my 1st graders was “death” and such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didn’t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter e, which just seemed so banal in the moment.”

Soon after the post went viral with over 69,000 re-tweets and 2 million likes, at the time of writing.

The first guess from one of my 1st graders was “death” and such an awed, somber, reflective hush fell over the class that I didn’t want to tell them that actually the answer is the letter e, which just seemed so banal in the moment pic.twitter.com/7sYFxHNcZk

— Bret Turner (@bretjturner) January 2, 2018

Soon, people on social media started responding to the post and gave their opinions about the answer of the student. While some lauded the child for his intellect others stated that the answer was ‘rather interesting’. Check out some of the reactions of the post here:

That the answer is “e” is rather interesting. Though “death” is certainly a much more profound answer. This made me think oh the novel “A Void”, by Georges Perec. It was written in French, with no letter e’s; translated into English with no e’s.

— John Francis Nooney 🤷🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♂️💁🏼‍♂️🤬🏳️‍🌈 (@noonski) January 3, 2018

Give that kid the “A” I expect a great screenplay from him/her some day.

— Harrison Smith (@HarrisonSmith85) January 3, 2018

Should be giving the kid an “E” for effort…

— Avi Greenberger (@iamavig) January 3, 2018

In practical terms, death leads to new life. Your remains become a part of everything. We are all made of ancient stardust. If you’re religious death marks the beginning of everything. Life is merely a doorway into eternal life in paradise with god (whichever one you worship)

— 💡Sal-Robin💡 (@Sal_Robins) January 3, 2018

“E” is also for existentialism

— Bobbie Bees (@BobbieBees) January 3, 2018

This is so funny to me. https://t.co/byzpRqneqZ

— Jo (@JoTrainChoo) January 3, 2018

Death is definitely the better answer. 💀 Well done! https://t.co/nzgyDhCwpe

— Just Jo (@Graye670) January 3, 2018

I once subbed for a 3rd gr class which was asked to write a letter to Washington for President’s Day. One awesome kid, Bilal, wrote an entire letter asking what the afterlife was like, if GW could talk to living people, did he know ghosts. I hope that kid is a millionaire now. https://t.co/wCoOhGbssr

— Patrick McDevitt (@pfmcdevitt) January 3, 2018

Some people also gave grade and author suggestions for the student.

Send this child to read a novel by the Franco-Polish writer Georges Perec, who wrote an entire book without the letter “e” in it! https://t.co/MDv7XSAigE

— Mary Kenny (@MaryKenny4) January 3, 2018