DIVING EXPLOSIVES

I always wondered what little kids thought of when they closed their eyes and went to bed.

I know that when I was a little kid I always wondered what adults thought of. The truth of the matter is that now I am an adult and I have the luxury of remembering what I used to think of as a young child.

There was this one time, when I was about 7 years old I overheard my parents having a conversation in the kitchen. They were sitting around the table sipping jasmine tea talking about all of the many places they had never visited but always wanted to go to. They traced the entire globe from Australia to the United Kingdom, from Argentina to China.

My mom had never been anywhere, old as she was, she had my sister and me when she was but twenty-three. She never had a chance to travel, since she had to take care of us. My father had never gone anywhere either because he was scared of flying. While they were talking I heard my mom refer to a class my father took in order to overcome his fear. The class had unfortunately not worked. My dad was still scared, but they decided that even though he was scared of flying, there so many other modes of transportation they could make use of in order to go just about anywhere.

I closed my eyes and pictured my playroom. I had a toy plane and it wasn’t so scary. What was dad so frightened?

I thought of all the different ways we could get to another place: train, bicycle, sailboat, car… so many ways!

I went upstairs to my room and burst into my sister’s room and said, “Pack your bags, we are going on an adventure!”

She looked up at me from her drawing desk and said “Nathan, mom and dad aren’t going to bring us with them. Stop being such a child.”

Here is the thing about my sister: she is such a downer. She always takes my bubbles and bursts them. Little did she know, I had the same concern.

I was worried at first when I initially tuned into my parent’s conversation that they weren’t going to bring my sister and me along with them, but within minutes my concern was quelled when they mentioned that certain countries weren’t safe for us children.

‘So there Nora,’ I thought. I decided in that moment not to try to convince my sister that I was right and that we were in fact going away. Instead, I simply closed her door and walked away.

I went into my room and started packing my bags. We were going on an adventure and we would need just about everything. I laid out all of the things I could need: skateboard, unicycle, canoe and my swimsuit (just in case)… I didn’t know how far we were going so I didn’t know what transportation device we would need.

After I packed up almost all of my belongings, I ran back downstairs and told my parents I was ready to go.

They asked me where exactly I thought I was going. I told them that they didn’t need to pretend; I knew we were going away and then I showed them my bag and all its contents.

“You see? I’m ready to go. And don’t worry dad, no airplanes,” I said to him with a little wink.

My dad looked at me, patted me on the head and said, “Oh Natty, you are such a great little man. You can go unpack all of your things. We aren’t going anywhere. Mommy and Daddy are getting divorced.”

(ART by CLIO LUNIA)