A World of Colors

Chapter 13

I am alone in the house after I call dad to tell him the news. In that time, I pace the floor on my room, thinking of nothing other than how betrayed I feel. She may not have acted like a normal mother, but she was still supposed to be there for us. She hadn't told anybody about her sudden departure.

The pacing doesn't help. My head pangs from a migraine I gave myself out of worry. It sounds like the house roof is coming down, and headaches are only making it worse. I run down the stairs and grab my backpack from where I left it by the front door. Hauling it up the stairs, I toss it on my bed in my room and take out the filled camera that I used for the beach stroll and my computer to download and print the images and plan for my project.

I upload the photos from our research walk from this afternoon to my new project plan. I go back and look through the photos one by one, making captions for the hideous scenes. I see pictures of the poor birds and devastated fish, and pollution creeping into the water and sand.

I order the poster boards online and print out the order sheet for the pictures and the boards. I sketch out the colors and the positions of the pictures on the boards. The official day for my biology project pollution-gather walk is now on the twentieth. Mark had driven to the store to get the poster boards. He stopped in and helped me with the organization of the pictures, words, and colors on the posters. As much as I loved being with him, I needed some alone time. He seemed to sense this and left a short while after.

Sometimes, the best productivity comes in solitude and silence.

I turned on Mozart in the background after I couldn't take the eerieness of the whispering house any longer. It helped me think better about the task at hand.

I cut and print and glue until my hands are numb. There is no work more therapeutic than this project; in my own time of need, I can be helping the world around me recuperate and regrow. At least something in my life can.

I work on the posters, fliers, and sign-up sheets for around six or seven hours before I decide to have a cold dinner and slide under the dark covers.