a picture

He'd been there once before in the daylight's yielding colors, which diluted across the walls the greens and reds of the Fuji-Film poster in the thick windowpane. The dirt road dirty with garbage more than with dirt outside offered a good final snapshot to seal off the last roll for handing over to the developing-man. That time he rode his bike through the unfamiliar aggressive city streets. These streets felt most perturbing to a biker not so much because of the slightly aggressive nature of the drivers but because of their complete certainty that a person sitting in a car seat is to be valued more highly than a person sitting on a bike seat. Drivers in these streets drove in ways that certainly claimed their dominion over the shared realm of transportation. To bike these streets he played them like a video-game, make-pretend fun. He pretended the nervous sweat making his hands slippery on the metal bars (he always refused the need for bar-tape in the temperate climate of his origin so had the same convictions in mind when birthing his newest creation in this heat, not realizing...) and threatening his eyes with sour stinging from the brow were part of the very realistic though pixelated obstacles of the game. Do not misunderstand him, he was not fooling himself. He was only doing like you do when you pretend to be someone else. You do that. I know you do that.
So he bounced about to the rhythm of the traffic, catching missed beats with swerves and anticipating swerves by skipping beats. At times he thought his one front brake was not enough. At times he thought his one front brake was not just not enough but too weak for a brake in its own right. But all this he accounted for in his riding style. In fact, it enhanced the video-game: it meant he paid incredible attention. These adrenaline levels were better for his focus than the Adderall he'd tried. The ingredients for this special adrenaline were fear, excitement, anxiety, and arrogance.
Re-watering his insides through the mouth and down the throat at every inhale, he stood, panting heavily, and looked about himself to ensure his station was in no one's way. He was usually in someone's way, someone carrying something on their head getting frustrated with him for not following the rhythm or removing himself from the way. He leaned his bike to rest and leaned himself on the counter to inquire, and also to rest. The diluted reds and greens sprawled across his face and into his eyes which were only secondarily aware of these flavors. First on his mind was the calculation of price per photo. That done the naming of more suitable prices got under way until they leveled out on an appropriate plateau. He handed over the rolls of film and sat around for nearly two hours, befriending a geography teacher and dragging his weighty plow of an attention through Borges' Labyrinths.
This time he did not bike there. He did not take a car or arrive by any progressive manner. He was just there, as though he woke up there. No greens and reds because it was night time. The walls were covered in little individual cardboard packages of film rolls, from the very linoleum on the floor to the even cheaper suspended ceiling panels. The little consumer-designed faces of the rectangles faced him from all directions, breathing in on him, but this didn't quite feel real so he was not sinking into fear. He was only a slightly awed and slightly sedated observer. Sedated because along with the not quite real feeling was a general vagueness, a strange but accepted confusion. Nothing was very tangible or clear. Just all these repeated geometric forms and dulled colors of Kodak in the dark with Fuji-Film.
He picked up an old film camera of black plastic and second-rate metal. He did not know how to use a manual camera yet but this along with learning how to play guitar and and five books or so were on his to-do list. Rotating the focus and aperture and letting its weight push his hands below his elbows felt right in the hands. He knew he could channel his vision through it with some practice. In this way it would become important to him, like his bicycles, like his memories. Pointing his face into the dark blue gracefully curved lens at the front he was at once reflected and diving into its innards. Yes, he could fall in love with this feeling. We do that. We all do that.
Now the walls were covered with cameras, from the very linoleum on the floor to the even cheaper suspended ceiling panels. They seemed more poised than the previous packages of film rolls. Countless distorted reproductions of his little body followed his movements with no delay through those blue eyes, curved like big eyeballs with saturated irises.
And then they flashed. All of them.
Light filled the room, displacing the darkness. A sequence of continuing unregimenting strobe flashing filled him with enthusiasm. He could not refuse to spin in smiles in the middle of that little linoleum square. The cameras erupting in rapid succession cast that other-worldly white light of flash that his science teacher once said had microscopic sparks hotter than the sun's surface of 6000 Kelvins. The flashing slowed and the overpowering familiar clicking of snapshots lowered as some cameras approached the end of their roll. A few stragglers caught up with final flickers and claps until darkness seeped naturally back into the space light had usurped. The cameras were no more except for the one he held in his hands. The film packets were covering the walls once again.
Glee hung his face.
This be his only fame.

lycee childhood

Careful approaching, the plastic benches always get you with that static. When you're not paying attention is when it hurts the most. Then if I always think about them ahead of time I will be safer. Mental note: always then remember to think about them to avoid *ZAP* He thought crossing the sweeping plain of concrete courtyard from the brick stairs of the school building. It was Friday, afternoon, and Christmas vacation to begin. For Fred it wasn't Christmas, though. For Fred it was new year's and a Santa, Grandpa Frost to be more precise, that no one believed in. Grandpa Frost was a running joke his aunt would write on the package under the new year's Tree and refuse to admit having purchased the color-coded GAP sweatshirts for this pair of brothers. He was never given a chance to believe in anything that doesn't exist for his father made sure to ridicule every such thought out of existence. It would be an embarrassment to say you believed in anything, really.
Fred lived the life of a first grader crossing the courtyard, seeing his English teacher Maureen across the plain. She was between him and his battleground with static electricity.
Fred was smart enough, but too often didn't think about the things around him to the expected extent any person would. Perhaps you would say nothing short of average for a first grader to not fully grasp a thought, even an obvious one whose entire point is in its title that he often repeats mechanically, in both Russian and English (less so in French): new year.
new year was a celebration, a family gathering at his house with a large dinner and a triangular tree seen on no other occasion, decorated foolishly with old Russian ornaments dug out from the dust and gloom of the garage. A two week break was given for it. That was new year, without ever thinking about the concept the words new year aim to describe.
School Year. Now that he understood. That made sense, and was even introduced with a much more substantial vacation called SUMMER. It ushered in the relatable phenomenon of Grades: with every end of Summer began the School Year, which was defined by him in terms of introduction into the next grade level. This was all in relation to his context and his ability to understand numbers on a basic level (their order). Every Year he was aware of his own age which changed with his Birthday, which coincidentally was September 4th, just at the bend of Summer's end and the next grade level. Every Year he was aware of a grade of children younger than him and his colleagues, and a grade younger than these, and a grade one above him and then one above them (his brother's, the Third Grade). These were all the things that defined a Year. This he understood.
So he had often heard say and said himself new year (again in several languages) but today he was to be thoroughly shocked. Soon he was finally going to understand TIME.
Here's how it happened:
I will not get shocked because this time I remember. Should I tell Alex? No, why share a good advantage, even with a friend? Not worth it, it could somehow take the secret from me. Let him figure it out himself.
"Have a lovely vacation, Fred. I will see you next Year," chanted Maureen with the lovely smile of a woman who has exalted in teaching children rather than being warn to drags by the fuss involved. He looked at her, probably said Thank You in his complete hesitant confusion. Next Year? What next Year? Next Year is after this vacation with the dinner for new year's and then the whole rest of the School Year and then Summer. What in the world did she just talk about?
This was the moment of the planted seed. The realization or comprehension of the concept of a calendrical year started there, when he noticed that some people talked about some other form of a Year. He did not understand it for himself in that moment as his mind was unable to join the words new year with next Year into: New Year. This did happen, it's impossible to say when though. Perhaps it was later that day when he asked his mother or father, or later in the vacation, before the dinner or after, having elucidated the concept himself or not.