The Kid Who Wanted to Be a Thundercat. A Memoir.
Chapter One-ish. The Kid in his element. The only dangers are the ones he makes for himself.
At some point during the last century, a stuffy scholar (most likely in a university somewhere in Europe) coined the term Magical Realism to describe Latin American literature. But for people from these countries, like myself, these stories are not magical or mystical. They are just stories. Like mine…
If this was a movie, the opening scene would be a shot of my face from the top down, in full frame, while I fall backward in an eternally slow drop into a black abyss.
Legs and arms flailing while desperately trying to reach and hold on to something.
Anything.
But there’s nothing to grab onto.
I am going down, and there’s nothing I can do about it except brace myself for impact.
But I think about a lot of things as I fall. My choices leading up to this moment, for one.
It’s amazing how lightning-fast the mind works in moments of extreme despair or looming pain.
If this were a sport, the moment would be like one of those when an elite-level athlete is “in the zone.”
The Zone is a moment of incredible clarity. Everyone appears to move in slow motion, except for you. This is how a soccer player running with the ball at his feet can fake left and perceive the exact moment when a defender falls for the dribble. As they move their hips ever-so-slightly in the direction of the fake, the player with the ball switches hard to the right and runs down the field to score.
But I’m not really thinking about soccer at this point.
I am thinking about the mission I failed to complete. I was exploring an inhospitable world as the captain of the EXO-1, the diplomatic spaceship under my command.
Anyway, I am thinking about my crew (a ragtag group of pre-adolescent kids) and how, if I don't survive this fall, they will have to fend for themselves against unknown creatures without their fearless leader.
Me.
And while I plunge to my doom, the rest of my crewmembers remain safe at their stations on the spaceship. The truth is that the fall is only about six or seven feet.
And the spaceship is actually a neighbor’s tree.
I miscalculated a standard move, a classic jump-swing-jump combo.
A move I’ve done dozens of times before.
The branch of the ficus tree finally gave up on me with an agonic cracking sound at the worst possible time, right when both of my legs flew parallel to the ground below.
I can actually see my dirty shoelaces.
The neighbors were not home, and when you’re ten and living in a small private community where everyone knows you, all the front yards are fair game.
By the way, I am still falling.
My friend Lilly and my sister Diana, both seven at the time, but with much better sense than me, sit in branches opposite one another halfway up the tree. The lush foliage doesn’t quite allow them to see me fall.
Another friend, Henry, second in command (and the worst climber), is safely positioned in the lowest possible spot. Henry’s younger brother, Oliver, is also safely perched over a solid branch just below where the girls are. His mouth is wide open, and he looks bewildered as I whiz past him on the way down.
The sky is strikingly blue, hosting a healthy number of the biggest and fluffiest clouds you can possibly imagine. Cumulus, they are called.
It was a common occurrence for the whole gang to lie on the grass to look at the sky. The grass tickled against the skin of our arms and legs since we always wore shorts because the weather was always warm.
As I continue to fall, I feel a murmur by my left ear, and when I turn my head, there’s a hummingbird. He flutters closer than I’ve ever seen one before in my life.
Right in my face, in fact.
I can see the break of each individual feather and the different metallic hues that make their fuzz blueish-green, golden orange, and copper red as each of its wings move in a hypnotic figure-eight motion, which I can fully appreciate.
The bird chirps, tilting its head ever so slightly, and I feel like the little bugger is smiling at me as if saying, “That’s not how you do that!”
But the sluggishness of the previous vision comes to a sudden halt with a loud thump that sucks all the air from my lungs as I land completely flat on my back.
And everything goes black.
My ears are ringing.
My lungs are burning.
And I hear the echoes of my friend’s voices.
“Oh my god!”
“Is he alive?”
“Crap!”
“I’m getting mom!”
I have no idea who is saying what, but I recognize my sister’s voice when she says she will get Mom.
I cannot allow that.
I will get in trouble for sure. Again.
A sudden surge of adrenaline gives me a much-needed jump. I gasp for air, somehow incorporating myself while yelling;
“I’m ok, I’m ok!”