The atom is made up of three components: electrons (negatively charged), protons (positively charged), and neutrons (no charge). Protons and neutrons reside in the center of the atom while electrons revolve around the nucleus at incredible speeds. It is the electrons’ attraction to the protons that allows them to remain in orbit.
Atoms, in their entirety, make up all forms of matter within our world. They make up our cells, plants, brains, goldfish, planets, and our universe.
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Saturday morning holds a brisk breeze, reminding me of winter’s lingering presence. I’m in Nora’s room ready for the dance – I always arrive already dressed, even if we’re technically supposed to be “getting ready” at her house. While all of my friends curl their hair or put on makeup, I sit on Nora’s bed. She has a cream comforter that sinks around the weight of my body. Dead plants reside on a dusty shelf with a simple cream colored wall as its backdrop. I take a breath in, noticing how the air is stagnant – ever-present, yet unmoving around me. Air is simply made up of a combination of carbon dioxide, oxygen, nitrogen, water vapor, and various other elements. Technically there is nothing significant about this bedroom’s air from my own. Yet the stillness of the air evokes the subtle caress of a memory. The sound of laughter and conversation ebbs as my mind drifts back to my home. My real home.
Back to my Casita.
She was our little house. Walking in, I was always greeted with her familiar smell of aged fabric and freshly cut flowers fermenting in the room. The room had no AC, so the air never truly flowed in or out. I liked it that way. It was as if the essence of the room was always stored in there, unchanged by the time I returned. Laughter arose easily in that house, and my mother joked I would soon develop wrinkles from all my smiling. It was my sanctuary – my center – ever since I was 8. Thinking back on it, I remember how 8 is the atomic number of Oxygen, which is the most abundant element in all living organisms.
Emily, my friend, shrieks with laughter – apparently she tripped over a hairbrush – and the sound returns me to Nora’s bedroom where I am 18 once again. No longer oxygen, I suppose, but rather Argon.
My fingers tap restlessly on Nora’s comforter from boredom; I now focus on a hot pink picture frame that sits isolated on a bookshelf. The frame holds a picture of a smiling cone and ice cream that says “best friends” at the top. I gave it as a gift to Nora over 7 years ago. I wonder where the time went – how we seem to lose those sunshine-filled days and bursting wells of joy as each year passes. When did the world grow leached of color? How am I only left with a pink picture frame, a cone and an ice cream in the center – together, yet worlds apart. Like an atom broken from its bonded pair.
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Atoms come together in hopes of becoming more stable, thus making some of the most essential compounds we know today – carbon dioxide, water, salt, and acids. Atomic elements are arranged on the periodic table in increasing atomic numbers. These numbers symbolize that there are more electrons within the nucleus’ orbit. However, as this number increases, the outermost electrons begin to feel the proton’s charges less, leading them further away from the nucleus. This makes electrons easier to remove in order to increase stability.
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My eyes return to Nora, who is currently trying to curl her hair in front of a scratched mirror. She is the kindest of my friends – her soul the embodiment of a soft yellow. We tease her for being so innocent within the friend group, but in truth, she is only the one that kept her childhood wonder. I always tell her that she lights up a room whenever she walks in, which is true. However, I never mention that her light reveals my own shadows.
As my friends continue moving about the room, I hear snippets of conversation of who will be at the dance to how eventually we will have to move away from home. Emily asks if I’m nervous to leave for college. Thoughts lazily swim across my mind to form a response, but I only simply shake my head. I’m no stranger to leaving home. After all, it happened when I was 10. The year I began to lose my Casita.
Those days were lively with the soft heat of the San Diego sun and the blaring horns of cars making their way to the beach. I listened to my parents’ endless laughter and their endless fights. They guided me onto the Casita’s couch saying they have to tell me some news. I thought we were going to Disneyland, but this wasn’t the kind of news that brings families together; it was what tore them apart. I sat silently as the room grew colder, and my parents told me they would be living in separate houses from now on.
What was now one home would become two. Did atoms grow sad when their bonds broke?
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Atoms are mostly empty space. While they may appear solid, the protons and electrons hardly contribute any mass to the electron. Nonetheless they provide stability for the atom. Each atom can be classified into specific categories based on their properties like alkali metals, metals, alkaline earth metals, nonmetals, and noble gases. Most of these groups look to make bonds with each other with the only exception being noble gases.
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Nora scrunches her face in concentration with the curler still in her hand. Her dress is a deep red that reminds me of an experiment I did in chemistry class. My classmates and I placed various metals under a bunsen burner and recorded the colors they each produced. This is due to electrons inside the metals jumping to higher energy levels as they absorb the fire’s heat. When the electrons return to their original energy level, they release energy in the form of light. One such metal was Strontium which burned a deep red just like Nora’s dress. My dress is black.
She asks me how classes are going, and I reply by saying how I love my chemistry class. I ask her my latest chemistry question – how does the molecule serotonin create the intangible feeling of happiness? Is nitrogen jumping for joy when it makes a bond with a neuron? Or is carbon just happy to be there? She rolls her eyes at my question.
I smile from her bed and ask her how things are going with college and her grandfather. Nora pauses at curling her hair and weakly smiles. I can see the emotions written on her face. She anxiously taps her foot saying she is unsure on how her grandfather will take the news of the college she picked.
Despite my curiosity broaching this sore subject, I like talking about these things with other people. Not because they make people sad, but because I want to know what people are truly made of.
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Noble gases do not like to make bonds with other atoms. This is because they have a complete octet of electrons, making them incredibly stable atoms. Due to this, noble gases are chemically inert, and they won’t interact with other elements. Light bulbs (Argon), balloons (Helium), and neon lights (Neon) are just a few examples of noble gases’ usefulness in various human inventions. These gases are colorless, orderless, and tasteless. Invisible to the world, but used nonetheless.
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Nora turns to me and asks how things are with my family. A smile forms around my face, and the word good leaves my lips. She then asks how I am doing. It’s harder to continue my smile as I reply I’m fine. I omit how these last couple years have been draining, especially when I was 14.
That was the year my school sent me home. I then had to learn about the microscopic world from a distance. My room suffocated me until I could only lay on my bed and wonder if the atoms that make up a virus recognize the atoms that make up my brain and my heart. When the virus comes into contact with my cells, does it see what truly lies in the center? Or is it just electrons creating bonds with other atoms – not caring what breaks and forms in its place?
After the divorce, I had to move to a different house. A house that was no longer the Casita that held me within her walls. Grief and longing tangled with each other, but a strong ache for that little house remained unaltered. I searched for my Casita in the dark corners of my mind from my pale bedroom walls, but she will not open her doors for me anymore.
When was the last time I visited?
That white color of that bedroom is the same shade displayed on Nora’s walls. Nora begins saying something, and I quickly give her reassurance that everything will turn out fine with her grandfather. I know I am truly listening.
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While an atom usually has an equal number of protons and neutrons, the electrons can fluctuate greatly – some can be added or removed. However, the number of protons will always remain constant within the atom. It is their consistency that scientists use to determine the identity of an element. Many atoms on the periodic table are not found naturally in real life because they are too unstable to remain as only one element. Either they get rid of their electrons or form bonds with others around them. That is how the world is created – because the smallest of atoms continue forming bonds.
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I tell her that her grandfather will understand and that the world is just of atoms bonded together on a rock. Nora laughs. That’s when she turns around and gives me her smile – a smile so sincere that it reaffirms that she is the sweetest one I know. How does she do it? How does she find that joy again?
Nora speaks to me.
“You’re a really good friend.”
I’m taken back to when I was 8.
I am running and laughing freely through the garden on my way back home. Back to my Casita. I am back to that smell. Oh, that smell.
The smell brings me back to washing off remaining grains of sand in that blue tiled bathroom. It is everything and nothing. It is mine.
I am reminded of watching a movie with my grandparents as my grandmother tries to hold a washcloth over the kissing scene. My small fingers are untangling a necklace, a skill that I pride myself on, for a guest on our desk table. Flowers bloom in the garden outside as I swing in my chair for hours.
I blink and see my best friend’s room – changed. The room still contains my friends as they get ready for the dance, but now holds a scent of aged fabric and flowers. I swear I can feel that San Diego heat as I sit in my home. In my Casita.
Even a change seems to have taken hold of me, so subtle I doubt its existence. This unknown sleepily moves throughout me, but I find myself unbothered that I don’t have a name for this shift for I still know some things to be true.
I know my friends will finish getting ready for the dance in the next few minutes; we will move to head out the door, an array of colors, where the sound of groaning will ensue as pain shoots through our feet as we take pictures. I know sweat will cling to us like a second skin as we dance for hours on end.; we will stay up late and wonder why Derk was talking with Rachel, long forgetting the minutes spent getting ready.
But at this moment, my legs carry me from the bed to wrap my arms around Nora’s frame. She throws me a questioning glance, but doesn’t say anything. When my skin comes into contact with hers, a little static shock ripples between us. I jolt a bit at the contact, but tighten my arms around her. The last piece of knowledge I know leaves my lips.
“Did you know that atoms just want to connect?” I whisper.
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Everything in our world is made up of atoms, but we can’t even see them for what they truly are.
