A Speck of Light
I had to grow up on the streets, without any guarantee of a warm bed and soup at night. With no proper schooling or education, I was forced into joining the local street gang headed by Madder and his fellows. Madder had dozens of homeless children working for him, either as beggars or pickpockets or small burglars. He called me “young Chuck” and assigned me to be a pickpocket. I was very successful at first, however as Murphy dictated, anything that can go wrong will eventually go wrong. I was on Brooksville street and I had selected my target, an ignorant man who was sitting outside a café and had kept his watch on the table. When I was moving in for the strike, a policeman appeared out of nowhere and saw this young battered boy make his way up to a table and quickly grab a watch that clearly wasn’t his. Alas, that was the day my career as a pickpocket ended for good.
“The juvenile accused has been convicted for theft and pickpocketing and shall be required to spend his days in a youth detention centre until he reaches the age of majority,” and just like that I was shipped off to ‘The Prism’ which is one of the largest detention centres in the United States. However, the Prism was not what I expected it to be. I expected it to be like a hardcore tough prison where they make you shave your head and study for 6 hours a day. However, upon reaching there I was given a blue stripped shirt and blue jeans and was sent to my cell. Thus, began my monotonous routine of the everyday life at the facility. We would have 3 hours of studying everyday with warden Brandt who made me almost feel thankful I didn’t have to attend school when I was on the street. He was quite strict and he would drone on endlessly about theorems and laws and give us a lot of work to do. Warden Brandt and I had a sort of enmity against each other as I never used to pay attention in his class or do his homework. I just hated studying but luckily, we had a 4 hour recreation time also every day in which you could go to the yard or the canteen or the library. I would spend my time in the library with my only friend in the prison, Willy the librarian. One day they decided to show a French movie in the library and initially I thought that it was a ridiculous idea since none of us knew French and reading the subtitles would be boring but Willy insisted I come. Little did I know that this one French movie changed my entire life. The French movie was a comedy and it was hilarious and everyone in the room had a blast. But for me, it was more than just a comedy movie. I became fascinated with the French language and the art of making a film. I then spent my next years at the prison learning French and the art of films. During my last year, as I was working on a script for one of my film ideas, Willy approached me and told me that he had a job offering for me. He told me that he knew a friend at a school who needed a French teacher for the next session. I couldn’t believe my ears, a job to an ex-felon at a school. From there on, my remaining days went as a breeze and I wasn’t scared for I knew that there was a job and a salary for me in the outside world.
I was scared on my first day at school. Just like a freshman, I was terrified out of my wits about what people would say about me. Not until my first class began did I accept that I had nothing to fear for. The children were kind and sympathetic and it was an absolutely amazing experience to teach this wonderful bunch of children. Not only that, sometime later the principal approached me and asked me to head the theater society of the school which regularly put up plays. Who knew that a rainbow lining could even be found in the dark clouds of a prison.
