The walls are painted off-white. But that's not what you notice because on top of the paint are pictures and posters and shelves. The entire east side is covered with windows that open outward into a slim balcony.
The north part of the room has a lab bench with a microscope. Beside the microscope are a couple of glass slides, some agar plates with streaks of bacteria, a spiral bound notebook, and a pen. There are some shelves above the bench with some bottles of solutions labeled by a hurried hand. Underneath the bench are some metal drawers. At least one of the drawers contain science papers, photocopied from elsewhere, stapled at the corner, and filed in alphabetical order according to the first author's last name. There is also a stool in front of the microscope, but no person is occupying it. Just a thick molecular cell biology textbook. The north wall is papered with posters of science-related diagrams.
A door to the rest of the house is located on the west side, but it is closed. There's a calendar tacked up on it (with pictures of cute, fuzzy animals) with X's marked on days gone. Under the doorknob is a plastic trashcan with bits of crumpled paper and some discarded post-it notes. To the right of the door is a blackboard with small bits of colored chalk littering the edge. Someone has written half of a poem and has drawn a rather strange face in green underneath. Underneath the blackboard is a cardboard box taped shut. It's labeled "Used" but used what?
The left of the door segues into the south part of the room. The south wall is just a wooden shelf--wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling. There are all sorts of books imaginable, from non-fiction, fiction, serious, trashy. On the west corner is a stuffed armchair with a blanket; both so well-worn that the real color is smudged away and all that is left is gray. There's a red rug and on top of that a three-legged footrest. Beside the chair is a plain metal reading lamp and a canister filled with umbrellas. Behind the chair, the wall is taped up with newspaper and magazine clippings.
Ah, and back to the east with the windows. The drapes are a pale beige and they are pulled back to let the light in. One of the window doors is opened to the balcony which has a telescope (for spying on people) and a wooden bucket containing pebbles, two slingshots, and four paper airplanes. The balcony overlooks a residential street where no one has bothered to close their blinds. The railing is wrought iron, twisted into grotesque shapes. Someone has superglued a plastic gargoyle to the corner.
