Childhood Flashbacks

black and white photography, Fiction Story

I think that we all see things from the perspective of the inner child. The image above is the side entrance of the Nicholas County Courthouse. Even though I have really good friends who work there I always feel a little intimidated walking into the building.

I start to have flashbacks of slowly strolling down the hallway towards the principal’s office. (Headmaster in other cultures). Now, I wasn’t really in trouble a lot in school. I swear it was someone else that was shooting wads of paper through a drinking straw. Or, placing small woodland creatures in the teacher’s desk drawer. And I have no idea how wild leeks (known locally as ramps) got into the heating system of small classroom. (Looks away acting innocent). However, I always found myself trying to explain these things to an authority figure at the end of a long narrow hall. I remember it as if it were yesterday. I can hear the funeral march playing in my head. As I approach the office the door creaks open. The secretary looks at me empathetically and offers a blindfold. The door closes behind me. Surly the end is near. Okay, maybe that’s just a little melodramatic. But isn’t it odd how certain places bring up old feelings?

We think of ourselves as full grown adults but at heart we’re all still children. Children that are full of wonder and daydreams. And yes, sometimes a little irrational fear.

( The truth is I’ve never had a bad experience with anyone in this building. They’ve always been kind and helpful. )

16 thoughts on “Childhood Flashbacks”

    1. Lol, specifically… it was a bat. The teacher kept her snacks in the drawer. The bat was hibernating when I found it but wide awake when she opened the drawer. As a bonus, we were reading the Odyssey and the bat was discovered right about the time Ulysses got to river Styx.

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  2. This sounds a lot like “Proust’s madeleine”… Well, in there it’s a taste and a smell that reactivate particular feelings, but the idea is that we attach emotions to something we experienced with our senses, and it lives over decades, whole, intact, and it resists to everything, even where some memories can blur, “that” feeling “that” sensation survives…. great writing! And great photo!

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