When Joshua first entered college, he was an enthusiastic kid. His short hair was spiked with gel in the centre, possibly spent hours doing so. He put on his black t-shirt with an 'es' in the centre inside a diamond shaped box. He put on his spectacles and jeans on his face and legs respectively, not the other way round. He also did not put his underwear over his jeans and on the inside. He had a single-lens reflex camera with additional flash and an add-on lens slung over his shoulders. Over his back was a slim backpack which looked as though it was compressed.
On his first day and his second day, he was quiet. But on his third day, he was already in the front of the classroom, waiting to join the yearbook committee. Apart from that, he was being very noisy. He was busy talking to almost everyone he came across. For very obvious reasons, he joined the team as a photographer and his first assignment was given. He had to go to some event and snap some pictures for it. It was easy, it was simple.
---When the day before the event came, Joshua was well-known in the college, mainly for his attics and harmless insults. He knew almost everyone and everyone knew him by his name or by the person who kept taking their pictures. He was also the class clown in all of his classes and throughout the corridor of college. Another thing about Joshua was that, unlike his camera, he was unfocussed and he was not very careful.
During the same day, he misplaced his camera in college. His normal reaction would be to panic before trying to figure out where he left it. He remembered that he lent his camera, who he named Rachael, to his friends because they really like abusing his camera. He went around inquiring everyone about his missing camera but to no avail. Desperate, he decided to give something to anyone in exchange for his camera. However, he managed to find it in the end by his own and everything was in perfect condition. It was such a relief.
---Tomorrow came and Joshua prepared for the event. It was the orientation night for the new intakes. He recharged the batteries of his camera, making sure all equipment is fully functioning. He wiped his lens and he hopped down to college. The day went smoothly. He took a lot of great photographs and the event too went quite well. It was such a great turn out which was rather unexpected. All in all, it was a success.
That night itself, Joshua went home wearily from all the excitement at about midnight. He was dead tired but everyone had been bugging him to upload his photographs as soon as possible. They all liked his pictures and they all wanted it. In the end, he conceded to their request. He dragged his laptop out from the backpack and placed it on his bed. With heavy eyelids, he placed his camera on his bed and connected both gadgets together. His finger tapped the pad below the keyboard of the laptop and swirled it around to move the cursor. Soon, he managed to actually do what he was supposed to do, even though it did take ten minutes longer. Everything after that was automatic. The photographs were being transferred into the laptop digitally and the progress was being shown on the screen with a bar. The estimated time of completion was about thirty minutes and Joshua could not keep awake much longer. He fell asleep.
He dozed off as the job was being done. As he fell on top of the warm space next to his laptop, his hand dropped against his camera and his fingers slammed against some of the buttons. His camera slanted and its button was leaning against his laptop. The flash coincidentally lit on and something interesting was about to happen.
---The next morning, Joshua woke up as though he had a hangover. He forced himself to lift those heavy eyelids. Once he finally got it open, he was in for a surprise. The camera flashed into his eyes and an image of a bright white light was burnt into his corneas. His first reaction was to close his eyes shut and scream in pain. It was next followed by a very shocking reaction and immediately checked his camera. As he was about to figure out what was going on, the batteries died. He quickly took out the batteries to charge them and took out the memory card where all the photographs would have been inside. He inserted the memory card into his laptop and found about two thousand pictures of Joshua's drooling face in it. Upon seeing that, he immediately deleted every single trace of it.
It was a Saturday morning and seeing that he was awake, though he was planning on sleeping in, he decided to finish uploading all the photographs online. He managed to fall asleep after that and woke up around two hours later. When he woke up this time, he felt something sharp pierced through his brain momentarily. He clasped on his head until it was gone. After a few more minutes of lazing, he finally got out of bed and headed downstairs. He went to the kitchen in attempt to make breakfast when he realised he forgot where he put that spoon he used the night before. He tried to remember and then something clicked. It was like his brain was a drawer filled with photographs and someone was going through it, one by one, with great speed. The little man in his head scanned through each photograph and stopped when he found the perfect one. He took it out and showed it to his thought and his thought saw the glittering metallic utensil in between his Mathematics textbook.
For a moment, he stood there dazzled by this ability. He could never do this before. Then, he started to think of the possibilities. But he realised; this could easily be a dream. So, he pitched himself and felt agonising pain because he overdid it. And he tried it again. He tried remembering the first time he cheated on his examination and everything was fuzzy. He tried to remember something more recent, like what happened last night and he could not. He, instead, tried to remember what happened the first time he woke up and he could remember it all really well, as though it was recorded. He went took the nearest book next to him and looked at it and he could memorise the entire recipe for quiche.
He hurried to the nearest mirror and looked at himself for abnormalities. There was none. He smiled. And from then onward, he could remember that smile.
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