“I’ve got an idea!”
Musa now had the attention of all the other kids. They started lifting their backs from the lazy sloth on the paved ground outside of his garage. All the kids in the conformant townhouse complex regularly gravitated towards his house during the school holidays.
“Let’s build a rocket to go into space!”
Keryn, the oldest of them started rolling her eyes. “You know it’s impossible to build a rocket to go into space Musa”.
“How do you know? Have you ever tried it?” Musa shot back.
Keryn looked at the ground in defeat. “I guess not”.
“But where will we get all the things to build it with?” Zintle asked.
They were now all standing in adventurous excitement. “My mom only gets back from work later, so I can’t ask her to buy it” Musa dismissed. “Ya, mine too” Jacob added. After a short contemplative pause, Zintle picked her hand up in excitement, exuding her orderly school training. “We can use trash and recycle it! We can go to all the black bins in the complex and find stuff people have thrown away!”
“We are all going to be astronauts!” Jacob shouted.
Whenever adventure began, the kids entered an imaginary world, unconstrained by the limitations of their senses. Trees suddenly grew taller and bigger. Gates became portals to other worlds. Roads became intergalactic pathways to multiple universes. And gravity became a useful tool which could easily be put back into the toolbox when it became inconvenient.
All seven kids started running up towards the house at the top of the hill. Many bins lined the side gates of the houses. They swarmed around the bin at house number 13 in hopes to find something useful. Musa and Zintle held it tipped over, while Keryn and Bongs started digging through it. Their imaginations had transported them to a desolate scrapyard, with wind and tumbleweed surrounding them. After minutes of foraging, they unfortunately found nothing. They tipped the bin back up, and started picking the trash that had spilled over onto the grass. Musa turned towards the house and could see someone peeking through the curtains. As soon as their eyes met, the curtain quickly and aggressively closed. “I think Malume Wilson is onto us” he said cheekily.
They went onto the next house, number 15. They could already see empty cardboard boxes placed next to the bin. “Jackpot!” Zintle shouted. “I’ll carry these quickly back to your house Musa. You guys can go onto the other houses”.
As she turned the corner towards Musa’s house, Keryn’s mom started storming towards her. “Where is Keryn!?” she asked angrily. Her hands shaking, she pointed to the direction of the other kids. “Keryn! Come here right now!” her mother shouted out loud in her why-are-you-embarrassing-me tone.
As she desolated the sanctum of their imaginary world by entering into it, they were deflated back to earth, their imaginary bubbles blown and found themselves firmly back in gravity’s clutches.
“There have been complaints on the WhatsApp group that you kids are digging into dustbins!”
“Yes mom, we are building a space rocket”, Keryn answered shyly wondering what would happen after this”. Zintle had walked back and was now standing next to Keryn with her head jolted towards the sky, trying to make out the meaning of Keryn’s mom’s facial expressions.
“A what!? People are saying you are getting your hands dirty and making the whole complex filthy with dirt and disease!”, her mom continued shouting.
“But we’re just playing mom. I’ll wash my hands when we get home.” Keryn pleaded. Zintle stood shocked with her mouth wide open, surprised Keryn could talk back to her mother like that. Zintle’s heart then skipped 2 beats when Keryn’s mom turned to her with piercing eyes and said, “I’m going to speak to your mom about this.”
“Please don’t! I’m begging you! We’ll stop right now! I promise!”
“Then I think all of you should just go home. This is not a place for kids to play. You have school for that where your teachers can deal with your nonsense.”
With heavy shoulders, they each dragged their feet back to their houses. Musa closed the door behind him, slouched on the couch, picked up the remote, and switched on the safe imaginary world that had been created for him.