Science Projects Are Nightmares. And I Love It!

Wasted Effort?

A huge sigh broke the silence.
"How much time do you guys have?"
One by one each answered.
"I got about 2 hours."
"3... maybe"
"I have an hour tops"
I thought about it for a moment then said, "you guys wanna take a break? We could go out and get some fresh air."
Whitelight and Rei happily agreed. But I couldn't convince Wilbur. After 5 minutes or so, us three wraped up our work for the time and slowly got up from our workbench. Which was basically my whole room. All the wasted materials were piled up around us. Safety cutters contradicting their names and being half open. Hot glue guns, some with our burnt skin on it (probably). And a ton of magnets and cardboard. We were making a maglev train for this year's science project.

We had already collected all the materials and dumped it at my place. It was the day before the contest. And we hadn't prepped for anything.

Our first track was an utter failure. We had to scrap it all and start from the very beginning. 4 hours of work wasted. However, we were confident in our new design. And so, another 2 hours had passed. My fingertips were crying for mercy.

"Will, if you need anything, call me."
"Just gimme something to drink and I'll be fine."
"The fridge is open for you. Take anything."
"Thanks"

The rest of us walked out the door in a hurry.
We jumed around the neighbourhood. Not on the sea level however. We were jumping from rooftops to rooftops. It was an old habit of mine. And naturally I forced it into my friends.
There was a new building under construction. It was the largest of them all. I had been on the top once. You really could see the whole city from there.
The building in question was 22 floors high. The main entrances were obviously off limits. So, I found a new one. The building still didn't have any grilling done. That meant, we could "break in" through the third floor balcony.
The rooftop adjacent to the building inclined downwards at the edges. I carefully approached the corner and jumped straight over to the other building. I had a simple formula for my success. DON'T LOOK DOWN. As it turns out, the formula has to be learnt through practice. Simple words didn't cut it.
Light took his time standing on the edge and contemplating on life. Me and Rei considered leaving him there. But finally, he made the jump.
Later he would admit it had been actually quite easy.

The trip from the third floor to the 22nd was a nighmare, both practically and figuratively. The overcast sky combined with no lights in the building made a product that was spooky even with three of us climbing together.

The rooftop entrance didn't have a gate yet. We just casually walked in. The construction workers were on a break(for the week). So, we didn't have the worry of being caught.

As we walked up onto the roof, mother nature welcomed us with a warm followed by a cool breeze. I looked around. It truly felt like we were on top of the world. The highest trees looked like a cumulative bush. The distant north-west sky looked mesmerising. A giant stretch of clouds were blocking the setting sun. It was an amazing mixture of red, orange and silver with some sudden flashes of blue in the form of lightning. A misty gust of wind nearly knocked me out of my feet. The air pushed my shirt to my body sucking out all the heat. My body shook up and my brain released a bunch of dopamine. I had just got the "goosebumps". My parters in crime also approved of the feeling as the three of us spread out our hands as an attempt to etch this feeling inside our minds forever.

About half an hour later, we came back to our workstation. Our lonely worker had been grinding away all this time. But from the looks of it, it seemed like he had enjoyed it in his own way.

One by one all of my friends left. Only a few finishing touches were due. So, I banged my head on the project and got it done by 12 am. I had to sleep in another room because of the freakish mess.

The alarm didn't wake me up. My mother did. Before my alarm went off. I was quite salty that morning. Who knew my saltiness would come out as actual sweat, of panic. I opened my room's door to find everything tidied up to a spec. My project kept on the table like an amazing specimen. A specimen that only looked valuable. The specimen that had a wire hanging out from the circuit board.