Day 38 – Hour 011"Four Days of Silence"
I didn't keep a journal, but if I did, the past four days would have read the same.
Wake up before six. Wash with cold water. Dry the same shirt on the same rusty nail. Walk the same back alley to Marco's shop. Knock once — never twice — and start the day in silence.
Every hour after that belonged to him.
Marco didn't speak unless necessary, didn't repeat himself unless he thought I wasn't listening. He measured trust the way carpenters measured wood: with quiet focus and no room for sympathy. At first, I thought it was posturing. Some hardened routine to keep students from slipping.
But it wasn't posturing.
It was the way he worked.
By Day Two, I had already memorized the shadow points across the western wall at different times of day. By Day Three, I could strip and reload film in less than two minutes without scratching the reel. By Day Four, Marco started leaving prints out without explaining what was wrong with them. He knew I would figure it out.
He still hadn't said the word "good" out loud.
But yesterday, when I corrected the white balance on a faded portrait before he could point it out, he made a sound — a faint breath through the nose.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
This morning, he unlocked the shutter exactly on time and gave me a slow glance as I stepped in.
"You don't flinch," he said. "That's rare."
I didn't answer.
He liked that more than if I had.
The morning passed with routine drills: exposure tests, distance guessing, lighting transitions from natural to artificial. I didn't need reminders anymore. Marco set the pace, and I kept up.
Around noon, he handed me a stack of black-and-white prints.
"Pick one."
I sorted through them. All still lives. A hammer on concrete. A shoe bent at the heel. A fruit split open. I chose the one with the fruit — not because it was beautiful, but because it looked like something had just happened to it.
"Good," Marco said, and tapped the frame with a knuckle. "You picked the one that hurts."
I thought that would be the end of it. Another quiet day. Another click of the mental metronome between us.
But just after the sun shifted through the south window, Marco locked the door.
Then he moved the chair in the back, the one with the scuffed leg, and dragged it to the center of the room.
He didn't speak.
Just waited.
A knock came — not at the shutter, but the back entrance. Soft. Deliberate. Two beats. One beat. Pause.
Marco opened it.
A boy stepped through.
No taller than my shoulder. Eleven, maybe. Maybe younger. Skin the color of clay, clean shirt tucked too tightly into grey slacks, dark shoes that didn't belong on a street this dirty. His face was unreadable — not cold, not friendly. Just still. Like someone who had been taught never to blink unless necessary.
He looked at me once. Then looked away.
"Ah," Marco muttered, closing the door behind him. "Right on time."
The boy didn't speak right away. He removed a glove — only one — and offered his bare hand to Marco. They shook like businessmen. No smile. No nod.
Then the conversation began.
But not for me.
They spoke in code.
Actual code.
Phrases that meant nothing but were clearly loaded. "The wires are thicker in the west this season," the boy said. "But the branches are flowering faster."
Marco answered without hesitation. "That's what the winter breeds. Soil hardened before the melt."
I stood still.
A chair. A fruit. A flowerless tree.
They weren't talking about agriculture.
"You sure?" the boy asked, now in plain speech. His voice was strangely deep for someone his size. "He looks a little too clean for this."
Marco didn't answer right away.
Instead, he looked at me. Then back at the boy.
"I'm sure," he said.
That was all.
The boy turned toward me, slow and precise.
"You'll be assigned something light," he said. "Nothing that compromises the frame, but enough to see if the composition holds."
I didn't pretend to understand the metaphor. I knew better than to ask. Marco hadn't explained anything before, and this felt no different.
"You'll be briefed in private," the boy added, reaching into a black satchel strapped across his side. He withdrew a single photograph, face down.
"You pick this up tomorrow at Hour 08. From the mirror stall, in the east corner of the second market ring. If you're late, it vanishes."
He handed it to Marco.
Marco didn't pass it to me.
Not yet.
Then came something strange.
The boy looked around the room. Not inspecting, not judging — just… observing. The same way Marco did with a lens in his hand.
"You've trained him well," he said.
Marco didn't respond.
The boy tucked the glove back on, bowed his head once, and exited the way he came — two beats, one beat, pause.
Gone.
Silence returned.
Marco set the photo on the table but didn't push it toward me.
"I don't like it," he said.
It was the first time I'd heard worry in his voice.
"They said it's simple," I offered.
"Simple doesn't mean clean."
He stepped back and crossed his arms. His eyes stayed on the door where the boy had left, as if expecting it to open again — or maybe hoping it wouldn't.
"That one's not from the Club," he said after a moment. "He's mine. One of my own."
I stayed quiet.
Marco continued.
"Used to run errands. Smart. Sharp. Didn't talk much. Then somewhere along the way he got noticed by the wrong people. Now he shows up like this — full suit, cryptic lines, dead eyes."
He looked at me finally.
"You don't follow orders from him. You follow judgment. Your own."
I nodded, but I didn't move.
Marco tapped the photo once, then turned away.
"You'll pick it up if you want to. Not before."
Then he resumed cleaning a lens.
And I stood there, wondering when this apprenticeship had turned into something more like a trial.