BooksBarbecue
Back All the Water in the World
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. PART I
  4. Eve
  5. 1
  6. Maddy
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. Eve
  12. 6
  13. Maddy
  14. 7
  15. 8
  16. 9
  17. 10
  18. Eve
  19. 11
  20. Maddy
  21. 12
  22. 13
  23. 14
  24. 15
  25. PART II
  26. Eve
  27. 16
  28. 17
  29. 18
  30. 19
  31. Maddy
  32. 20
  33. 21
  34. Eve
  35. 22
  36. 23
  37. Maddy
  38. 24
  39. 25
  40. Eve
  41. 26
  42. 27
  43. PART III
  44. Eve
  45. 28
  46. 29
  47. 30
  48. 31
  49. 32
  50. 33
  51. 34
  52. 35
  53. 36
  54. 37
  55. 38
  56. 39
  57. Coda
  58. 40
  59. Acknowledgments
  60. Reading Group Guide
  61. About the Author
  62. Copyright

I am a good scientist and a terrible artist. I like to read, mostly nonfiction. Biographies and history books. I play the guitar, classical and also folk. I am six feet, two inches tall (just over two meters). Oliver Sacks does great work in observing the dysfunctional brain as a way of drawing conclusions about the normal brain. I am part of a laboratory that is studying memory and synaptic transmission. If we can understand better how neurons normally talk to one another, we might find out what happens when things go wrong. We do this by studying living cells from rat brains under the microscope. So yes, it is laboratory work.

Speaking of work, I’m afraid I have to go!

Antonio

13

Jack found out from Mr. Yam what software to use and had it installed on my laptop. His dad bought us a copy stand and we fixed his camera to it in my room, where we had some privacy. Once we had something to work on together, things eased up between us. I almost forgot about that embarrassing day in his kitchen. We played around together with the frame rate and resolution on practice sketches that I erased or blocked out with white paint. Like everything else, it was harder than it looked, and we hadn’t yet decided on the image sequence.

“Are you sure you want to use yourself?” he kept asking.

“It was my idea, remember?”

“It’s not too . . . close?”

“The closer the better.”

“Well, if you’re sure.”

Then the next day: “You’re sure you don’t want to use something else?” until I got fed up and told him to stop. People think when you have disaster in your life that you don’t want to think about it. They don’t realize you think about it all the time. The animation gave me permission to think about my situation and at the same time make something from it. I tried to explain it to Jack, but I’m not sure he got it. I thought my head could be wrapped in a cloth, then slowly unwrapped, or I could gradually go bald. Jack said no.

“Why not? Do you hate me being bald?”

“Too obvious. What about little by little you’re covered with human habitation, starting like from the beginning of the Anthropocene? Caves, mud huts, cities?” We felt no closer to a solution, but we didn’t want to consult Miss Sedge. “What do we wake up thinking about?” said Jack. “That’s what she said.”