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 [1]

— Bret Turner (@bretjturner) January 2, 2018 [2]

If we could be a fly on the wall, we'd strongly consider setting up shop in teacher Bret Turner's classroom the day he wrote a thought-provoking alphabet riddle on the white board.

"The first guess from one of my first-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," Turner wrote on Twitter.

Um, whoa.

"Before I finally revealed the 'correct' answer to the riddle, to a largely unimpressed audience, I fielded other guesses that continued along a similarly existential vein. There was 'NOT everything,' 'all stuff,' 'the end,' and maybe my favorite, 'nothingthing.'"

To Mr. Turner's contemplative class, we give you an E for effort . . . or, at least, for existentialism.