I See You

Andrew

The thing about second chances is that they don’t actually exist.

Redemption is a recovery from failure. Redemption is the greatest form of triumph. Redemption is an open door, welcoming every person willing to give up, well, giving up. Redemption is the poster boy word for second chances.

But I don’t think it’s ever synonymous with a second chance.

If you were to pick up a dictionary, you’d easily prove me wrong, but that’s from a book without a human face. From the deep dark crevices of my ever-so-active mind, I define them as polar opposites.

Chance means luck. Ergo, second chance would mean ‘trying to get lucky again.’ Redemption is a long and hard journey. A second chance is the prize of a waiting game that nobody ever wins. Nobody gets a second chance to feel the same excitement of a first kiss with a second lover. Nobody gets a second chance to take back promises they knew they couldn’t keep. Nobody gets a second chance to talk to a loved one who’s six feet under. Nobody gets a second chance to see yesterday’s sunset in person.There’s no such thing as a second chance.

But nobody said that it was a bad thing.

The fact that the things that matter in life only come around once is the best thing about human existence. It makes them all the more special. Identity, true love, memories, these are all the more valuable knowing that you’ll only have one in a lifetime.

Just one.

* * * * *

The second day of school is the day that every teacher dreads. It’s the day of the course’s introduction, which is the only lesson some students will take note of. I had with me my handy-dandy bulky dinosaur projector for my power point presentations, which saved me the trouble of writing on the chalk board. I’ve used the same slide show for years, which only consisted of the pictures of the masters. I didn’t know why I even bothered; they’re all mostly bearded men.

As I was in the middle of my lecture, the classroom door suddenly flung open. On the other side stood that kid from yesterday’s detention, panting and sweating profusely. Normally, I’d keep going with my lecture despite every distraction. But with such a grand entrance, even the students who were sleeping soundly at the back were awakened.

“S-sorry…I’m late. I ran as fast…as I could—”

“Just take a seat,” I said, gesturing to the empty seat on the first row.

Given that our classroom wasn’t the biggest, she had to shimmy her way across and pass in front of the projector. The room was dim, so as she was passing through, her foot got caught with the wire and unplugged the projector, leaving the room in total darkness. She pushed against the teacher’s desk, accidentally knocking off my bag from it, but managing to save the projector.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry Sir!” she yelled, pulling back the projector to the center and picking up my bag and setting it back on my desk. It ticked me off, but the shame that filled her face meant that yelling would only worsen the situation for the both of us.

“It’s okay, just take a seat,” I said calmly, plugging the projector’s wire back into the socket.

I could feel the heavy glares of the class fall onto her shoulders as she took her seat in the same chair she sat on yesterday. I tried shifting the attention from her to me, going on about the lecture as if nothing happened. By the end of it, she was the first to leave out of sheer embarrassment. It really wasn’t much, tripping on a plug and knocking a bunch of stuff over. But putting it in the perspective of a new kid in school, her reputation was off to a bad start. It sounds silly to an adult ear, but you’d be surprised at the smallest things that kids give other kids a hard time for.

But this is a pretty big school with plenty of people. I’m sure she’ll be fine.

***

Imagine talking about the same thing over and over again to different people at different times with different levels of energy. You can only imagine how stressful that is. By the end of my last class, I was ready to get out of there. If I hear myself talk about the history of poetry and prose again, I swear I’d choke myself to death.

As I watched every kid exit the room, one of them tripped on the plug yet again. He lunged forward trying to keep his balance before a friend caught him before he could fall completely. Lucky for him, the projector was already off and no one but his friends saw him. They called him stupid and clumsy, and one even hit him at the back of his head, but he, too, thought it was funny. He apologized and left; embarrassed, but happy.

He did, however, remind me of two things: one, it’s probably about time that I start looking for a much smaller projector that’s less of a hassle to set up; and two, I needed to check my bag. Of course, the day I decided to bring Yours along to school some kid comes along to destroy it even more.

Yours is the name of my film camera, named after an old inside joke. It wasn’t the oldest model nor was it the newest, but it sure was the sturdiest. Due to my careful supervision, Yours has endured numerous beatings throughout the years and still worked. It had a couple of dents on the side and I’ve cracked about seven lenses, all of which I’ve hoarded in the tiny cabinet in my room. The last time it fell and went haywire was three months ago when I was taking photos of a stray cat at the park. It was the most difficult repair I had to do in all its years of survival. Since then it finally convinced me to buy a camera strap for it. I told myself that day that if it fell one more time, it was probably going to meet its impending doom.

And so three months went by without an accident, until today.

My satchel was less loaded today to make room for Yours. All I had in it was a comb, peanut allergy medicine, matches, a couple of papers, and a book of Oscar Wilde’s “ThePicture of Dorian Gray.” I didn’t have a camera bag, so for security I wrapped Yours with a small thin blue blanket. Did it work? Surprisingly, no.

Yours was fine physically, but it wouldn’t turn on. Last time this happened, I waited three days to repair it, which was probably why it took a whole week for me to get it working again. This time, I wasn’t taking any chances. I borrowed a set of tiny screwdrivers from the school janitor and took it apart, laying all of its parts on my desk. Yours was going to die someday, just not today.

***

Nothing was able to distract me until I heard the knock on the door. I thought maybe it was Mr. Janzen, the school janitor wanting to do some cleaning or Shirley out to bother me, but before I could even yell ‘come in,’ the door had already opened.

“Why are you still here?” said that kid from this morning. She was much more different now, livelier than she was hours ago.

“I’m a faculty member, I can stay until closing. I should be asking you that, kid.”

“It’s Lyka, I’m seventeen.”

“And I’m twenty-seven, what’s your point?”

“Forget it.”

“Why aren’t you home yet? It’s, it’s, wow, 5:36 already? Damn.”

“I had a long talk with Ms. Shirley, apparently red hair isn’t allowed either. I told her I’d change it back in three months to give my hair some breathing time. But it’s too bad, I really like my hair—”

“Let me rephrase my question. Why are you here in my classroom?”

“Well, I thought about how you said that pulling the alarm yesterday wasn’t funny, so I was going to draw a giant p***s on your whiteboard with permanent ink.”

“Your creativity is heavily misplaced, you know that?”

“Thanks! What are you doing?” she said enthusiastically.

“Nothing. What do you want?”

“Are you building some sort of time machine?”

“No. it’s a camera. It won’t turn on after it fell so I’m fixing it.”

“Oh. Is it because of me?” she said, all enthusiasm gone.

“Nah, it’s been s**t before that anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

“You know, I could buy you a new camera. I have money saved for lots of things.”

“No, that’s not necessary.”

“It is. I screwed up. Late for class, destroyed your camera, I should be punished for that. I need to make this right.”

It puzzles me how someone could turn from the most joyous and annoying person into a wistful apologetic soul in an instant. I know that kids, most especially teenagers, go through a lot of confusion in their life, but there was something else about her that was more alarming. How she could be one person at one time and another in a minute, it’s perplexing. Now, I’ve never been the kind of person who knew how to comfort people, so obviously I didn’t want to deal with the sad kid standing two feet away from me. So going on my theory of how easily she changes her mood, I attempted to change the subject.

“Why’d you dye your hair red anyway?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s actually a funny story,” she said livelier than she was a minute ago. How weird.

“So there was this group of friends who absolutely hated my guts, but of course I didn’t know it at the time. Their leader, Kim, invited me over to a sleepover where we were going to dyeeach other’s hair. She planned to dye my hair neon greenwithout telling me, but she accidentally mixed up the colors and I ended up with her red hair dye and she had neon green hair for a week! Ha!” she explained, bursting in laughter.

“That’s not very funny.”

“Well, you don’t laugh or even smile so I won’t take that personally. Ooh, what is this thing?” she asks, picking up something from my desk.

“That’s the film.”

“So it’s a film camera? Wow, I’ve always wondered how they worked.”

“You into photography, kid?”

“No, I’m pretty sure it’s harder than it looks. I never would have guessed you were into it though, because, no offense, but you’re really, and I mean really, boring.”

“Thank you…?”

“So are you like, teacher by day, photographer by night?”

“No, just a teacher. Photography’s just a hobby. A really, really expensive hobby.”

“Seriously, I can just buy you a new camera,” she said, this time just annoyed.

“It’s really not necessary. I have four cameras, two of which, including this one, are film. I don’t need to hoard another camera.”

“So why are you fixing this one then?”

“It’s special, this one,” I said, assembling the parts back together. “I’ve resuscitated this camera back to life more than I can count. Here,” I said, handing it out to her. “See if it turns on again.”

She held the camera like a delicate baby, turning on its switch.

“It’s on,” she said smiling. “Wow, you’re really good at fixing stuff,” she commented, examining my afternoon’s great rescue.

“Not really, just cameras. Here kid, make yourself useful and return these screws to the school janitor for me. That could be the punishment you’ve been asking for.”

“Really?” she said cheerfully. “I’ll do it. What else should I do?”

“Go straight home after. It’s past your curfew.”

“That’s it?”

“Don’t want to?”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. It’s just that it doesn’t seem fair enough.”

“Kid, nothing will ever be fair enough. Justice is a myth. Whether it’s fair or not fair doesn’t really matter. You take whatever life throws at you with no protest, so that being said I suggest you go start looking for the janitor before he leaves school premises.”

“Okay then,” she said sternly, heading for the door. She stops midway and turns back to me. “Whoops, I almost took this thing with me. Here, I believe this is yours.”

Yours.

Get it?