Flower

The quiet of the classroom was only disturbed by the scratching of the pencils on the sheets of paper. There was a rhythmic tap to the scribbling on the paper. Pages turned every few minutes and the students moved on to the next section. The bright fluorescent light above the classroom illuminated the thirty students in the lecture hall. It was the final test of the summer class. Lidia stood at the front of the classroom helping administer the test. She watched the students work on only their test papers. It was the final class to take the test. They had of course an advantage to ask the previous class about anything on the test. But as the test was scheduled one after another there needed more time to converse among students. Lidia stood on her tiptoes feeling her back aches from stiffness. Being this alert caused her back and neck to stiffen.

The time seems to slow down as the students take the test. Lidia attributes this to her aching back. Every move to the left or right causes her pain up to her shoulder. With her back on the chalkboard, she rests for a minute. Professor Zee motions with his hand and fingers spread out ‘five’. There was only five minutes left of the test. Good thought Lidia she could go to her apartment and rest afterwards. Some of the students only were reviewing their answers now. Buzz Buzz. The alarm rang on top of the desk at the front of the room. The students looked up.

“All pencils down, while we collect the test,” says Professor Zee.

Lidia walks up the steps to each row letting them go one by one to be dismissed. The students leave behind their exams facing down. When the last student leaves Lidia picks up the exams into a neat pile and hands them to Professor Zee. The lights above the classroom flicker for two seconds sending the classroom into a brief darkness. The lights turn on with a hum that echoes somewhere up in the lightbulbs above Lidia’s head. She walks out of the classroom and into the building hall.

The summer’s sun feels warm on her back while Lidia walks through campus. Flowers on the side of the sidewalk are in bloom a bright pink color. She bends down to take a photo with her cellphone. The angle of the sun beating down on the flower illuminates the small veins on the pink petals, moving like a system of rivers throughout the plant. Each vein stands out in a red color against the pink translucent background. After taking the photograph, Lidia gets back on the sidewalk, the apartment is only a short distance away. Out in the town, people walk every few meters. Without making any additional stops Lidia arrives at the apartment building. The keypad beeps when entering the code for the front door. The heavy glass door opens to allow her inside of the building. Inside the common living area, Lidia spots her roommate by the microwave with her back turned. Lidia walks to her.

“Hey! Are you watching a movie?” asks Lidia.

“Hey, yes! Want to join?” asks Sophie, her roommate.

Sophie grabs hold of the popcorn bag from the edges, the steam rises from the bag. They walk up the step and into their apartment door. The couch calls Lidia to sit, her back aching for relief. Lidia lies on her back on the soft sofa. Her bones pop and crunch against the fabric of the couch. Lidia allows Sophie a spot on the couch by sitting upright; her back refreshed from cracking it on the couch. The television turns on as they browse for a movie.

The romantic movie lighted the white walls of the living room. The young women laughed throughout the movie they had already seen yesterday. The movie ends while Lidia is preparing herself a ham sandwich on the kitchen island counter. The spread of mayonnaise is spread from edge to edge covering the wheat bread in white like snow. She closes the two parts of bread together and eats her sandwich. It is already time to head back to campus Lidia realizes. The tests from this morning need to be graded; the students will be the most impatient to know their grades.

“See you later,” says Lidia pulling the apartment door slowly to a close.

“Later,” says Sophia within the apartment.

The afternoon sun feels double as hot as it did in the morning, the sun’s rays beat down on the pavement. Inside the science building, Lidia feels a sense of relief from the heat outside. The cool AC blast throughout the ceiling vents onto the hallways below as a refreshing breeze. There are no students in the clean building only one other professor passes by Lidia as she makes her way to Professor Zee’s office.

With a red pen in hand, Professor Zee is marking the test at his desk.

“Hello Professor, how can I help you?” asked Lidia moving closer to the desk.

“Oh yes look through the multiple choice,” says Professor Zee stacking a set of tests on the other side of the desk,

This was going to take a long time thought Lidia. Using the Answer Guide Lidia marked up the test by hand because Professor Zee was adamant about how tough to test. It is one of the reasons he had asked for an assistant. Soon the pile of white pages have marks of red on them. Lidia down a final run to calculate their final grade and inputs them in the computer by dictating it to the Professor. They double-check the grade of each student before moving on to the next student. The final grade is entered into the computer. Lidia stretched her arms over her head. She checks the time on her phone, it is now dinner time.

“It’s time I head out now,” says Lidia leaving her hand at Professor Zee.

“Let’s grab something to eat. My treat,” says Professor Zee.

Lidia agrees and waits in the hallway while Professor Zee closes the office. The Lights turn down and the door closes when Professor Zee walks out to meet her in the hallway.

The table in the cafeteria is nestled in the corner of the room. There is few people here tonight, but the menu is still plentiful for anyone wanting to grab dinner on campus. Lidia sets her salad down on the table her glass of lemonade in the other hand.

“Thank you for inviting me,” says Lidia the rumbles in her stomach urging her to take a bite of her meal.

“The pleasure is all mine,” says Professor Zee setting down his pasta plate.

The scraping on the plates fills the space between Lidia and the Professor. They conversed on easy topics such as the hot weather outside. Not a morsel of food is left on their plates by the end of the meal.

“We should do that again sometime,” says Professor Zee.

“That would be great. It's almost time for the research presentation, I think there’ll be many long nights of writing work,” says Lidia

They stand up to return their plates to the kitchen drop-off area. There is a pill of other dirty plates and bowls rotating on a belt within reach.

“Oh yes, by the way, can you meet tomorrow for the last phase at the lab?” asks Professor Zee.

“Yes, what time?” asks Lidia.

Professor Zee waves goodbye to Lidia from the sidewalk as they head in two different directions.

At the end of a full day, Lydia lays in her bed. The image of the flower she saw today is in her mind. She reaches for her phone to look at the image once more. Zooming into the image with a pinch of her fingers she looks into the veins of the flowers and thinks of all the life going on inside of the flower at a microscopic level. Turning off the phone she rest her mind on the image of the flower ingrained inside her eyes.

The morning is a quiet one with the absence of her roommate. Lidia eats breakfast and surfs her laptop until it is time to go into the lab. She opens her emails finding one from the Professor sent early this morning. The email notes from Professor Zee mentioned the sample will be thawed today.

She double-checks the apartment and exits locking the door behind her.

Upon arrival at the lab, Professor Zee is waiting for her to begin the procedure. She is to take notes while he thaws out the sample.

The cold mist swirls around the sample smoke like a campsite. The Professor moves the sample carefully into a warmer area from one enclosed container to another with warm heaters under neath, and more cold swirls rise up from the sample. Lidia jots down her observations she takes note of the temperature and looks at the sample through the microscope.

The time spent in the lab passes by quickly until Professor Zee calls it a finished project. They store the sample in the container for the judges to look at for the research. Professor Zee is very confident in his work of a life time.