It is a vast expanse of white canvas, densely populated by the colored squiggles of a greater purpose. pale to better show its meaningful scribbles and translucent to better show the story behind it. Each color represents a pillar of history, and each individual word points towards the past. Forgone is a gentle neatness or a strict rule of order, for history is not so. Over here, a looping list of leaders and their laws. Over there a collection of catastrophes and their causes. Every piece has its purpose, its score, and its story of a long long night. And yet, after all that toil it seems almost weightless, when once it felt heavy. Now it is worthless, while once it felt more important than the world, back when it was only seen in that room.

The one with the rough white walls, the brown fancy couch, and the 3 pronged chandelier. The curtain lays upon the dirty white carpet, rough enough to give one rug burn. Although it was not ideal by any means, it supported the canvas nonetheless. An old dusty aura permeates the room, likely emanating from the ancient TV and its stand, which sat against the wall, molded to its shape. Three less-than-loved switches lingered near the door, one for the room lights, one for the hall lights, and one for the fan. Although filled mostly with junk, an empty bookcase, a broken table, a pile of old blankets, it boasted itself to be the only room with floor space for the task.

This task was a gruesome one. It demanded complex thought and deep understandings, an ability to draw connections on a complex web of facts, events, and people, while avoiding the prominent stereotype of a less-than-sane detective's wall. It requires more order, more concrete connections, but also a wider breadth, although it evokes a feeling as if it does not. What of that, however, is not par-for-the-course on school projects? To that I would claim its extent, having thirteen times the area of a four-page paper, representing all of 1000 years of human history. Not to be forgotten is its staged structure, done in parts 9 times a year. 

Perhaps the only worse experience is the hours before. As is typical of many arduous chores, the anticipation is worse. A good night's rest flexes its grip, as if Isaac Newton himself reinvented gravity for the sole exigence of spite. A mattress has never been softer than the moments before something needs to be done. The tools, too, are in opposition: markers, paperweights, and caffeinated beverages seem to find themselves in places they should not be, and certainly not where they were last time.

The hardship must be lost on our professor, as she has seen it a hundred times. I choose to believe it is not in malice that she proclaims our inadequacy, but instead a fundamental misunderstanding of how many words can fit on a piece of paper. I want to believe her when she tells us she is helping, but it becomes more difficult for every late night spent toiling away. "The test!", she cries, "this will help you on the test!": these are words lost on the voluntary hard-of-hearing. They were lost to the deafening sound of her announcement: three sections in three weeks. 

Although it seems such a ghastly shade of white, it may look more lively under the light of day. Perhaps the violent march forward might feel slower if it had been done long before they reached their destination. For reasons unknown, I doomed myself to suffer. Even knowing this, I blamed the project, cursing her name all throughout the night. That name I shamed should have been my own.