"Spray some fixative on that if you don’t want the colors to smudge.” 

“Okay, thank you.” 

“Here you go!” 

“How do I open this?” 

“It’s opened, just twist the cap.” 

I trusted my art teacher, and though the can weigh heavy in my hands, I rushed into the elevator wrapped in a puffy purple coat. I tried to twist the lid off the fixative, but it didn’t open and had a layering of tape over the cap. 

“Well,” I thought, “this isn’t going so well.”  

I continued downstairs. The elevator was slow, and I thought I could manage. But I soon realized, after standing in the dark wintry night for two minutes with stone-cold fingers, that I couldn’t open the can anytime soon. Passersby must have looked at me strangely --- a girl standing near a garden with yellow and purple lights, trying to open a can, a huge drawing spread on the floor. When I finally decided that it was better to go upstairs again, a man who had been sweeping the streets came out of the shadows of the trees. 

“Do you need help?” 

“Well, I think I can figure this out myself.”  

I couldn’t, but the man looked sixty, and though he had kind blue eyes, his hair was ragged and unkept under the tattered baseball cap he wore, and his sweater peeking out from a neon yellow vest was thin and reached only to a little below his elbows. His jeans were dirty at the knees. 

I didn’t know how long he was watching me, but he was around the whole time, so the thought of him there in the shadows, perhaps staring at me for a long time on a small dark street free of people, and the voice of my mom lecturing me against excessive conversation with strangers was all that was needed.  

“You sure?” 

He was stepping towards me, and under the streetlamp, I could see his eyebags which dropped down to his cheekbones. He mustn't be old- I felt he was a little over fifty. But his face was full of marks of time, whether carved lines or sagged skin. Seeing his skin and eyes, however, I could suddenly see a kind man, hard-working, but for whatever reason remaining at the lower end of society. 

“Actually, can you help me?” 

There were two or three people sparsely sitting on chairs under the lights in the garden,  

“Sure.” 

He was nodding and smiling. I gave the fixative can to him. His red and swollen fingers closed on the can, his strained knuckles growing whiter as he clenched the lid tighter. With a twist, the can popped open.  

“Thank you.” 

“Oh, you’re welcome. You draw this?” 

I looked down at the pastel drawing of a bear and a girl. 

“Yeah.” 

“You’re good!” 

“Than---” 

“Bright future.” 

He left as abruptly as he came. Our conversation was nothing whole, but it kindled a small and warm fire inside of me. I looked at the man. He was sweeping again, and his back was turned against me, shoulders hunched and bent awkwardly together as he swept cigarettes into the pan.  

As I stood waiting for the elevator, I thought about the man. The fire was replaced by a cold dread pressing against my chest. Why did I assume that he was bad? I was certain that, if I saw the man some five years ago, I would have made no such assumptions. 

We are constantly changing, shaped by the world. And with that growth comes understanding, a comprehension of what is really happening. With the growth comes the classical prejudices. As we encounter more and more rules and stereotypes of society, we apply them to our lives. A simple action might seem to have a thousand things leading up to it and another thousand reasons for why it was done. When we see a person, we judge without thinking and put them into categories based on what we know --- which is never a lot. 

But, what can I do? What is too much innocence that makes one stupid, and what is too little that makes one prejudiced? If the perfect balance is unattainable, then what can we do?