|
Tick, tock. Swish. Tick, tock. Swish.
I peered around the laboratory door, staring at the back of the eccentric old man hunched over his beakers, burners and graduated cylinders.
Tick, tock. Swish. Tick, tock. Swish. On and on the monotonous dance continued.
A mix of emotions passed through me as I watched the man work. Fascination, awe, and deep confusion. I took a deep breath, nervous to interrupt. "What are you doing, Professor?"
"Changing the world," he muttered.
Changing the world. How many times in his life had he said that?
"May I come in, sir?"
He didn't answer me, so I took that for a yes. I moved quietly over to an empty wooden stool near the lab table and wondered what great invention this elusive man was trying to bring to the world. Wondering what would engross him so much that he would rather spend endless days in a lab with nothing more than microscopes, test tubes, and a slew of laboratory rats as his companions for years on end?
I glanced at the beaker he was holding, watching as he gingerly swirled the cloudy contents in time to the recurring ticks. "Professor, will you tell me what you're working on?" Would he even answer? So many times my questions went unreturned.
Tick, tock. Swish. Tick, tock. Swish.
He continued whirling the liquids together, the ticks of the metronome his guide.
Disgusted, he sighed and with his free hand jotted some notes on his pad. "It won't stop coalescing," he muttered.
I coughed lightly and he glanced up, his expression surprised as he saw me; as if he hadn't even realized that I was there.
"Boy, come over here and take this from me and be sure not to drop it, you understand?"
Shocked, I ran over to him and delicately took the beaker from his hands. He never let me help him. Not ever.
He eyeballed me over his spectacles. "This process is called metronomemulsions." He placed his hand over mine, swirling the brew. His palm felt hot. "You hear the tick tock of the metronome and then you swirl these contents. Don't stop or else everything that I have been working on for the past few hours will be for nothing. You understand?"
I nodded vehemently, determined to do exactly as he asked, concentrating solely on mixing the contents correctly. I could see them trying to separate, watching smaller droplets trying to recombine to form larger ones. The liquid separating. Emulsion; a mixture of two unblendable substances. I had just learned that in my biology class.
The professor reviewed his notes and then glanced back at my beaker.
He turned and using a pipet bulb, measured out a small amount of liquid from another beaker and then with the same pipet, dropped it into my mixture. He inspected it, not speaking.
The liquid started to change and I got excited. I couldn't help myself and glanced expectantly at him. "Professor, did you add a surfactant?"
His head snapped up. "What did you just say?"
I gulped, my stomach knotting. "I said, did you add a surfactant?"
He gazed at me over his spectacles for a few moments, his eyes unreadable. "Yes, I did. What do you know of it?"
I took my chance. "Well, I figured that since the liquids kept separating, you added a surfactant to increase the kinetic stability so that the emulsion, or colloid, would stop changing." I stared back at the beaker, wondering if I had spoken too much.
Wondering if he would laugh at me.
Tick, tock. Swish. Tick, tock. Swish. Minutes went by.
And then, I felt the most hesitant of pats on my back and flinched. So unfamiliar. I turned to the professor, the expression in his eyes foreign to me.
We stared at each other for a few moments, the tick tock of the metronome our background music.
Then he gently took the beaker from me, and I sighed, realizing my time with him was up. Quietly, I moved across the laboratory and opened the door. As it was about to close, he spoke to me, his voice soft and hesitant.
"Michael, why don't you come back tomorrow. I could use the help." He turned quickly back to his beakers, his back now to me, but tears filled my eyes.
"Sure, Dad. I'd like that. I'll come back tomorrow."
And I left the room until tomorrow; ready to change the world.
|
