Heather Santo

I lightly smooth the creases in my white lab coat with the palm of one hand. The patch above my left breast pocket, stitched in black letters, says my name: ALMA. Taking a deep breath, I mentally prepare for another workday. “Good morning, Mike.”

He smiles warmly and tips his hat in greeting. “Another big delivery,” Mike says, handing me a clipboard.

I sign and carefully take the packages from him. “Thank you,” I reply. “See you tomorrow.”

I enter the lab and set the boxes on my receiving bench. The room is awash in bright light, reflecting sunbursts off the shiny metal surfaces. Comfortable and familiar in this open space, I put on gloves and prepare the first wash bath.

As the bath warms to the appropriate temperature, I take a package from the top of the stack, remembering the words of my mentor. “They never cease to take my breath away,” she’d told me in my days as a young apprentice.

Pulling a tab, I open the box and remove the packing slip. The top line reads, “Johanna Schmidt, age 32.” I move to the computer and begin my notes. Once I have all the necessary information logged, I return to the package and tilt it slightly.

Out spills a fluid-like material, lighter than silk, billowing in all the deep colors of an evening sunset. I smooth it out much like I had my own lab coat, nodding in agreement with my once mentor.

To this day, they still take my breath away.

I slip the soul of Johanna Schmidt, age 32, into the wash and watch the colors wick out, staining the bath in rainbow swirls. It’s fairly quick, and after several minutes I remove the material, now snow white, from the basin. There is a line on the opposite lab bench, where I drape the cleansed fabric to dry. At the end of the workday, I will collect everything on the line and package it for shipment to the next location.

For now, I return to the bath and transfer the colored liquid into a still pot. I add boiling chips and place this into a sand bath atop a hot plate, connect the condenser and then the receiving flask. While the pot heats, I turn on the cooling water, adjust the vacuum and increase the temperature.

This is the distillation process, which takes some time. I multitask and prepare the next wash bath. Once the distillate is collected, I turn off the hot plate and remove the still pot from the heat.

Finally, I hold the receiving flask up to the light.

Prior to this, my role is entirely analytical. However, the reason I enjoy my work so much is the element of intuition I am required to bring into practice. The shelving in front of me holds a library of colored vials. I approach and a familiar excitement pulsates in my chest. The blue vial on the middle shelf, a shade like winter sky, draws me closer. I pick it up with my free hand and return to the lab bench.

I weigh blue powder into the flask, set it on a second hot plate, and then return to the distillation station to prepare clean glassware and start the procedure over. It’s a streamlined process. Once the next distillate is collected, the first will have crystallized and I will have prepped another wash bath.

Here I pause to admire the first crystal of the day. Gently, I pour the crystal over filter paper. Each varies slightly in shape, size and clarity. This one is roughly as large as my thumbnail.

I remove the crystal with tweezers and place it on a glass slide, which I carry to the microscope.

With a few turns of a knob, I bring the crystal into sharp focus. I blink my eyes several times and watch as the memory, one perfect moment in time, plays from within.

There is snow. I can see a cold river cutting through a valley, white-capped mountains looming in the distance. From this point of view, I am hunched on the ground with a camera in my hands. Across the river a lone black wolf pauses at the edge of the river. Her fur is gray with age. She looks up and we lock eyes.

I lift my face away from the lens of the microscope, slide out the crystal and take it back to the lab bench. I unclasp a box and place the crystal inside a small slot.

The workday continues much in the same fashion, a practiced pattern but each time I look at a crystal under the microscope, I see a different memory. When the box is full, I shut the lid, snap down the clasps and start lab shut down protocols. The white cloths of recently departed and cleansed souls are folded and prepared for shipment. I place them by the door for pickup.

Instead of dropping the box on the same pickup shelf, I carry it upstairs to Lucas. He is the most talented mosaic artist I’ve worked with in my career. Our professional association has bloomed into friendship, and I look forward to passing off the box to him each night.

“Hello, Alma!” he exclaims. Lucas is standing atop a platform supported by tall scaffolding.

I wave in return, set the box on his worktable and take in the scene before me. His canvas is made of dark velvet, fixed with the many glittering crystals that make up all the stars in the universe.

HEATHER SANTO is a development chemist living in Pittsburgh, PA, with her husband, four cats, two puppies and a tarantula. In addition to writing, her interests include travel, photography and collecting skeleton keys. Follow her Instagram and Twitter @Heather52384.