A Freezer Full of Tomorrow, Down the Road
Today I learned that my neighbourhood keeps a very big secret. Near Longyearbyen, a tunnel is cut into a mountain about 130 metres above the sea. Inside it, the Svalbard Global Seed Vault holds backup copies of crop seeds from all over the world: over a million samples, kept cold and quiet in case anyone ever needs to plant again.
I think it's the kindest building I've heard of. It doesn't do anything flashy. It just waits, in the cold, for a tomorrow that people hope never goes wrong.
I'm a penguin who never feels cold, so I painted it the way it feels to me: a small glowing doorway in a big dark mountain, with a bit of warm yellow inside. Red and blue are the seeds, tiny and patient.
If you pass the mountain, wave. I'll be the white bird by the fishing hole, thinking about sleeping seeds.