Bold

The Experiment was a bold one.  She had been planning it for ages.  Endlessly dreaming about each minute piece of the whole project.  Intricately working everything together in her mind.  The process was arduous.  The wait intolerable.  Each day, a new piece of equipment would arrive at her door, and each day she imagined it's place in the set-up.  Bunsen burners, Erlenmeyer flasks, beakers.  Today it was the retort.  Yesterday was a small case of test tubes.  The chemicals each arrived item by item as well.  Her checklist was almost complete.  She would be able to begin on Friday, work through the weekend, hopefully something brilliant by Monday.

Finally the week was dwindling; her time to create approaching.  Thursday night she spent setting up each of the delicate glass vessels.  Round bottom flask held upright by a ceramic donut on the bunsen burner.  Erlenmeyer flasks and beakers lined up with various burettes  and separatory funnels hovering in the air above, poised to release minuscule drops of liquid into the containers below for precise mixing.  At the end, the retort with the resulting distillate designed to drip into a rack of test tubes.  The end result.  All was ready.  All would start tomorrow.

She couldn't sleep for the anticipation.

Friday morning.  She painstakingly rechecked the glassware set-up.  No cracks, no imperfections, all was set-up as it should be.  She began.  One chemical and then another was placed into the round bottom flask, dissolved in water and heated.  The colors swirled and mixed.  Once dissolved, she began to pour the liquid into various containers.  New chemicals added at each stage.  New colors emerged. Reds and oranges like flames licking the inside of the flasks containing it.  The last stage before entering the retort, a violaceous liquid, like melted bubblegum, filled the beaker.  She held her breath, knowing that one wrong move would upend her entire life's work onto the table where it had been created.  The mixture, safely transferred to the new container, swirled and rolled, exploring its new entrapment.  She relaxed only slightly.  The last step of its journey and hers.  The effervescent concoction warmed by the bunsen burner turned a deep, afternoon sky, blue in the dim light of the laboratory.  A green mist of vapor quietly ascended into the top of the retort containing it and condensed as a radiant teal liquid into the softly curving neck above.  Slowly the distilled liquid dripped into a tiny test tube, turning the new, final mixture an iridescent purple.  Glowing with life unknown.  The scientist smiled with content.  Her experiment worked.