A note before we begin: This chapter is a little longer, a love letter to a specific time and place. This is how life in Algeria was, around 2010-ish. I missed it so much while writing this. Life was so beautifully simple back then.
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Ryan walked toward the front door, stepping onto the familiar sun-warmed tiles of the porch. Outside, the neighborhood hummed with life. Kids ran through the streets, chasing a ball, parents calling them from balconies, bicycles clattering along the sidewalks. The dusty roads, the laughter, the chaos—it was exactly as he remembered, and yet somehow more alive.
He stepped inside, the scent of spices and fresh bread greeting him. "When did you go out?" his mother asked, peering over her shoulder from the kitchen. "I didn't even notice you."
Leila, his little sister, crossed her arms and scowled. "Yeah, and because you weren't here, I had to run out and get Mom's errands done. Really, Ryan?"
Ryan shrugged, a small grin tugging at his lips. Some things never change. The eternal sibling negotiation. "I guess being quiet has its own advantages."
"Advantages?" Leila shot back. "Like me doing your job for you?"
He smirked. "Yeah. Finally, we have some uses for you in this family."
"Dad! Look what Ryan is saying about me!" she yelled, pointing toward their father, who sighed heavily from the couch.
"Ryan… stop messing with your sister," their father muttered, shaking his head. He used that exact same tired tone when I was thirty-four, Ryan mused. Some dynamics are truly timeless.
"Alright, enough bickering," their mother interjected. "Come to the table for dinner."
The family gathered, plates clattering, bread passed around. Conversation flowed lightly—school, chores, the little annoyances of everyday life. Between bites, their mother reminded them, "Make sure your homework is done tonight. Clothes for tomorrow are on your nightstand."
He chewed quietly, glancing at the clock. Of course, I get reborn… and it's not summer vacation. Six-thirty alarm, homework, early mornings… why not make it easier on me?
Ryan stepped into his room, dropping his bag onto the floor. The old laptop on his desk looked like a relic from a museum. He clicked it on, and the room filled with the groaning whir of a spinning hard drive. He watched a pixelated progress bar crawl across the screen. Seriously? A loading screen for the desktop?
Finally, it booted. The interface was a mess of clunky icons and bloated toolbars. He opened the browser—another wait. He typed "YouTube" and hit enter. The page loaded in chunks: a bland, blue header, then a white background, then finally a grid of videos. No recommendations. No "For You" page screaming his name. Just a static, silent library.
Where's the algorithm? he thought, feeling a strange emptiness. Where's the thing that knows I want a mix of football highlights, video essays, and weird cooking videos all at once?
He tried to search for something, anything to spark that old feeling. The results were generic. There was no magic. No endless, hypnotic scroll. It was just... information. It felt like trying to start a fire with wet wood.
This is what I miss? This slog? He remembered his smartphone—the endless, perfect stream of content tailored just for him. TikTok knew his sense of humor before he did. Instagram showed him goals from obscure leagues he didn't even know he followed. Now, he was shouting into a void and getting a dusty encyclopedia thrown back at him.
He closed the laptop with a definitive thud, the silence of the room suddenly loud. The digital world he took for granted was gone. All that was left was the quiet, and the faint, warm hum of the old computer fading into the night.
He tossed the laptop to the side and pulled the covers over himself. Sleep came slowly, claiming him in the deep, still dark.
The next thing he knew, sunlight spilled across his face. The shrill beep of the alarm dragged him from sleep—six-thirty, like clockwork. He squinted at the ceiling, groaning, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. Back at it again, he muttered, starting his morning.
The morning routine felt smoother this time. His mother had breakfast ready—warm msemen and sweet tea. Okay, he admitted to himself, this part of being a kid is seriously underrated.
"Ryan! Yalla, we're going to be late!" The shout came from the street. His friends, Bilal and Samir, were at the gate.
He grabbed his bag and joined them. The walk to school was a whirlwind of familiar chaos.
"Did you see Barcelona last night?" Bilal exclaimed. "Messi is from another planet!"
"Pfft, Ronaldo's power is better," Samir countered. "That free kick was unbelievable."
They're not wrong, Ryan thought, listening to the debate about gods he'd only ever seen on a screen.
"Doesn't matter," Bilal said, shifting gears.
"My Barcelona will destroy your Real Madrid on the PS2 today. Just like yesterday."
Samir shoved him playfully. "You only won because of lag! Ryan, you're coming, right? We need a third."
"Yeah, alright," Ryan said with a grin. "But I'm picking Man United. Let's see how you handle Park Ji-Sung." The resulting mock-outrage from his friends was comforting. This was a rivalry he could understand.
The school day blurred into a drone of voices and chalk dust. Ryan was on autopilot, his mind a thousand miles away from the classroom, when his name cut through the haze.
"Ryan? Conjuguez le verbe 'faire' au présent."
The question was in his lap. The French teacher, Madame Ismaël, was looking straight at him.
His mouth moved before his brain could engage. The words came out smooth and fluent, with an accent too clean for a classroom. "Je fais, tu fais, il fait, nous faisons, vous faites, ils font."
A beat of silence followed. Madame Ismaël's eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of surprise behind her glasses. A few classmates snickered, not because he was wrong, but because he sounded like a news presenter.
Ryan's mind caught up. *Oh. Right. For the 13-year-old me, that was basically gibberish I struggled with.*
He quickly slouched back in his chair, trying to look not bored as much as possible.
The moment passed, but it left him thinking. English will be the same. In twenty years, half these kids will be fluent from YouTube and video games. They just don't know it yet.
He spent the rest of the lesson staring at the clock, its slow tick a constant reminder of the gap between who he was and who he was supposed to be.
Then came the last period: P.E.
The next two hours unfolded with a familiar, grueling rhythm. First, the mandatory run—twenty minutes of laps around the dusty, concrete pitch under the beating sun. Then, the teacher put them through a series of exercises: squats, jumping jacks, stretches, his voice a bored monotone echoing across the hard ground.
Ryan went through the motions, his mind numb. This isn't training. This is just killing time.
Finally, the teacher blew his whistle. "Alright! Girls, handball first!"
The girls' match was a brief, half-hearted affair on the main pitch, ending after about ten minutes. As they drifted to the sidelines to chat and walk in groups, Bilal quickly approached the teacher.
"Sir, can we play football for the rest of the time? Please?"
The teacher sighed, looking at the boys' eager faces. "Fine. But no shouting, no arguing, and if I hear any noise, it's back to running laps. Understood?"
A chorus of "Yes, sir!" echoed back. The teacher nodded, retreating to a shaded bench.
Instantly, the boys broke into a heated, hushed debate. "Three teams! Seven vs. seven! Winners stay on!" Mehdi declared, and the organization began. Ryan found himself in the second team, waiting on the sideline with six others.
They watched the first match, a frantic, chaotic mess on the small concrete pitch. As their teammates argued about their own positions for when they'd get on, the discussion turned to Ryan.
"Ryan, you're up front with me," Bilal said, not asking, but telling him. "Your first touch is clean. Just keep the ball and pass it to me."
Another boy, Karim, nodded in agreement. "Yeah, put Ryan in attack. He can dribble anyone here."
From the sideline, Ryan watched the clumsy game unfold. He cracked a small, private smile. The eternal pecking order: 1. The Ball Owner. 2. The Guy Who Dribbles And Passes So They Score. Guess which one I was.
Finally, the first match ended. His team was up.
The game started in the usual chaotic swirl, but Ryan moved through it like a warm current. The ball came to him and he greeted it like an old friend, his control easy and natural.
He saw a defender rushing at him. On a whim, he did a simple, almost lazy step-over. The kid bit hard, stumbling as Ryan glided past with a soft chuckle. "Easy there, tiger," he said, his voice light.
A minute later, he pulled off a neat little flick over another boy's head. This time, the whole pack of boys on the sideline erupted.
"Hey, no more of that!" one of them shouted, laughing.
"Yeah, Ryan, play fair!" another joked, though his eyes were wide with admiration.
He felt a dozen pairs of eyes lock onto him, a circle of grinning, challenging faces. Okay, okay, message received, he thought, immensely amused. No more tricks.
He switched gears completely. Now, he became a phantom of simple efficiency. He'd drop a shoulder, not to do a step-over, but to create just enough space to slide a perfect pass into Samir's path. He'd receive the ball under pressure and, with one touch, play Bilal through on goal. He was dribbling, but it was purposeful—a few quick touches to glide away from trouble before releasing the ball to a teammate in a better position.
He wasn't just playing; he was orchestrating. The joy for him was no longer in the flair, but in the result: seeing Samir's face light up after a great run, or hearing Bilal whoop after scoring an easy tap-in from his pass. He made everyone on his team look and feel like a star.
They won the match easily. As they walked off the pitch, the other team wasn't even upset, just buzzing from the game.
The walk home was filled with his friends replaying his tricks and his passes.
"You were on fire today, Ryan," Bilal said, bumping his shoulder. "Seriously, you were playing different."
"Yeah, not bad," Ryan said, his mind already moving on. I wonder if Mom made those almond cookies she was talking about. Or if there's any of that evening coffee left.
"If you play like that against the kids from the other neighborhood this weekend, they're finished," Samir added.
"Maybe," Ryan shrugged. His stomach rumbled. Definitely hoping for those cookies.
That night, as he lay in bed, his stomach full of cookies and warm milk, his final thought before drifting off was simple and content.
Not a bad day. Not a bad day at all.