Abandoned Camera

              

He was twelve when her mother's friend shifted him to the city from the village to give his mother a breathing space. Whatever drew him to the craft work was somewhere in the village not in the city. The old lady he was handed over to live with started noticing his inclinations in handiwork not long after coming to her house. He will touch this and that to the annoyance of the lady's household. He surely damages more than he repairs and his attention is never on mechanical and electrical things alone but on hammers, nails, and wood as well. Nothing escapes his attention and scrutiny.

        There is no question on whether he is a kind of local inventor, for sure, he is. He delights a lot in toying with any inventions he sets his eyes on. The old lady he lives with has shouted and got tired of shouting and her rebukes have even turned into a kind of neighborhood refrain " Chukwuka, are you mental?" she would scream whenever the tiny shortwave radio she uses to keep herself company in the evening is being subjected to opening and closing sessions each day. Or her phone being manhandled at any opportunity he gets. It's always from the lady "Are you mental in the hands Chukwuka?" even though she knows she is talking to herself because she had been at it for the last five months the guy had been with her. He will unconsciously most of the time dismantle and re-mantle anything that crosses his part, even his neighbors' gadgets are not safe from his itching fingers. Many have stopped him from entering their parlor or leaving their curtain open when he is around. He will focus on TV like other kids around, you will think he is interested in the "Square Pants' like others, but his hands and brain are itching to dismantle the same TV he is watching to see how they are configured. He seems to be truly mental when nothing to dismantle is around. He will turn to hammer and nail and start hammering one plywood into chairs and you need to see his face afterward. The way he will be eyeing his handiwork as if he went to duel with it will tell you more.

He will come back from school around 3 pm and saying that he does his house chores before turning to his inclinations is talking as if both are not the same to him. If he is not rearranging pictures in the sitting room to the annoyance of the old lady, who bought a mighty cane that solves nothing, he is turning the bed around to face the opposite side. Nothing, not one escapes his signature once in contact. One early Saturday, he so annoyed the old lady that she picked up her phone and called a member of her church choir and asked to employ him for the weekends. She so much wants the boy out of the building for her peace of mind. After an hour with the man, what he demanded for quasi apprenticeship she paid at the spot and asked him to take him to work that very morning. On entering the workshop, he couldn't believe the kind of tranquility that descended upon him merely taking a look at the man's workshop. He found out he was smiling to himself without realizing it. The man Mr. Luck Igwe was still explaining the dos and don'ts of the place and introducing him to the three apprentices when he realized that the boy he was talking to was talking to a camera on the table and smiling to himself. Shaking his head in amusement, he knew the old lady was right. "when you are being talked to here, you pay attention full time, do I make myself clear?"  " Sure" "So, like I was saying, never tamper with anything unless asked to do so, do I make myself clear?" "Sure" "When you are confused or want to talk to me and am not around, talk to this guy here" he pointed to one of the three boys. "and you are talking to me, right?" "Sure" 

His first day in the workshop was a dream Island for him. He sat there in amazement eyeing the three guys working in their various seats of which the oldest among them looked like 19 to him. He was observing how they handled things as if they were made of eggshells. But, it's the tiny implements they were using that captured his interest more than what was being done. Some implements are in funny shapes to him. Some of their legs look so tiny like hunger-stricken refugees. The instruction from the boss was to sit and observe. He would have loved to jump into the action immediately. 

He sat out the first day itching to go. His interior seems to be in ice while his exterior is burning like hell. He has never sat in a place watching people do what he wants to be doing but rules and organization have not always been his friends. But here he is in the ocean of what needed touching but helpless to do so. On two different occasions, he made two undirected forays with his hands and the head boy warned him off with his eyes. The guy didn't look friendly to him. He looks like the type you see in the school playground during a break. The type of bullies that are ready to descend on you at the slightest provocation even with the teacher around. Pain, bodily ones are not what he is built to handle well. The sadist as he termed the head boy seems to be the only thing so far he dislikes in the workshop. 

   " I heard you are to be here each Saturday and on holidays, right?" the sadist asked. 

 "Sure"

" Good. Each Saturday, make sure you are here at least around 15 to 8 and sweep here before customers start coming, okay?" 

"Sure"

" Then, Sure. You will watch when we sweep here in the evening for you to know where to get brooms and packers and rags and other things you will need, okay?'' "sure"

That was how three of them nicknamed him "Sure" As months went on, the name stuck.

On the second weekend, he came around 10 to 8 and was there for fifteen minutes or more when he saw sadist stumbling his way. Staggering like someone who made the journey from a Bar instead of his house, that is if he has one. He saw him about a few feet away and halted like a lorry being driven by a bad driver. " Sure. Do they drive you from your house? I mean don't you do those morning duties like others?" Chukwuka smiled uneasily. "This guy, I do not like him too much," he thought in his mind. He opened the door and both went inside. Chukwuka went through the hygiene ritual he was taught last weekend. It was never a problem for him, sweeping and dusting. He has done almost three times of the work each morning for years so, it's a relief. Within minutes, the whole thing was over and better to the chagrin of the sadist. " Sure. Which village you came from?'' The question was funny to him. Just for sweeping a tiny place and surprises are written all over his face. He answered and the guy went deeper digging to know more and his inquisitiveness was met with 50% truth. Sadist went into the store room and reappeared with a big carton full of cameras. From the dust on them, it seems as if the owners are either dead or broke. Some date back to two years, some six months. Some of the cameras, their parts no longer exist in the market and some were repaired without the owner appearing again. Sadist asked him to clean them. He can see it was a task their master gave him he is assigning to him as head boy. He bent down and took his time in cleaning each. He was enjoying the task. It offered him a good opportunity to observe the cameras at a closer range. Then, he saw a manual and what was written in it. He read and re-read the words and knocked himself for not coming with a book and pen. " Can I tear just a piece from the jotter? I want to copy something?" 

" Sure. Over here, we don't tear things, we build up things. If you want to write anything, buy a book, okay?" 

" Sure"

" Now, go clean. Don't write yet. There will be time for that, okay?" how he ends his sentences elicits smirks from Chukwuka. He thought if he had not given him "sadist" as a name, " okay" would have fit him well.

He came to know from the manual that the camera and the mystery behind it have six processes:

1) light reflects off the object being photographed

2) this light reflects off the object in all different directions and hits the lens from different angles

3) The lens focuses these rays of light to a point behind the focal point forming a real image.

4) the film is placed at the point where the real image is projected.

5) The shutter temporarily moved from in front of the film and allowed light to hit the film

6) light hits the film causing chemical reactions that "expose" the film.

7) The shutter then closes and finally the film is advanced so an unexposed piece of film is ready for the next picture.

He picked up the pencil while the sadist and two others were busy and tearing from the plain part of the manual, he copied the seven steps. Light seems to him to be the core weapon the camera operates with. He was enjoying the cleaning far better. Nothing like personal education in craft work. The instruction from the boss is that sadist teaches him all he is supposed to know. The basics of how a camera works but he was wondering what other basics there are other than the seven steps. Light, light, and more lights. Some with writing on them indicating lack of parts, he kept aside and others their owners changed their minds, he kept at the other side.  "better poke around those whose parts no longer exist" he thought to himself.

During the holiday and having known that the sadist doesn't like people breathing down his neck, he have done what he called pointing out the basics and he like it that way. He allowed him to lose himself on those whose parts no longer exist and that is exactly what suits him more than any other thing. Losing himself and time while enjoying it. He so busied himself with those cameras and recordings that he hardly knew when it was closing time. Mostly, the interior seems to be full of rubbers, tiny brass, and tiny wires. He was measuring and recording the size of whatever no longer exists and the tiny brass and wires on them. What he does is to test those brass and wire with his meter to see if they still work or broke and see what he can do by joining wires no matter how stressful and then measure the rubber part and went home to mold them using soft drink plastic cans and other rubbers. He tries to improve his mental drawings of the interior organization and working of the cameras and see how they help him bring them back to life again. He is enjoying the freedom he is given there even if not intentionally. He is sure none of the three is paying attention to what he is doing. It suits him fine that way. 

Back home, he is enjoying the tinker work of producing molders with his friends and the process of melting those plastic bottles and pouring them into the molders. After many days of trial and error, they mastered the act so well that he started getting exactly the measurement he needed. He now dreams of the workshop more than the school classroom and he is not regretting it. He only needed to know the size of the rubber parts, wire size, and the brass parts then went to work molding them or buying and joining them to make a new part that exists from the stables of Chukwuka and co.

      Within two months in that workshop, two cartons of cameras whose parts no longer exist were functioning again. All polished and sampled.

He seems to have leaped relationships with his colleagues. For one particular work that he sweated to conquer, he decided to take a selfie from it and asked his colleagues for a group pose, and sadist seems to be the most genuine one of the three. He was smirking heartily in the selfie.