Kids with Laser Guns

I crouched low in the tall grass, a bamboo staff strapped to my back and a stolen laser gun in hand. Next to me lay my trusted comrade as we watched the enemy camp through the jungle underbrush. The air was hot and sticky, bizarre fungi growing next to us on the monstrous trees that formed the jungle canopy. The small moon that we called home was almost entirely covered in thick rain forest. Home had been a happy place, only marred by the occasional tribal conflict until these new intruders arrived from other worlds and began to build their gleaming, box-like homes in place of the massive trees in which we lived. They came in large, walking machines and flying scooters. They came armed with laser guns and other powerful weaponry that we had never even dreamed of. We were nearly powerless against them with our arrows, reed dart guns and fire bombs. The war had until recently been very one-sided. But slowly, we started to win battles as we implemented better strategies and advanced weapons stolen from enemy camps. In that lay our greatest hope. Stolen weapons. Which is why my companion and I were watching this camp, a small outpost, guarded by only 8 men. They would each be carrying a handgun, 5 plasma grenades, 10 charges and a radio which we could use to listen in on the enemy's wireless activities. My comrade turned over his shoulder and nodded. It was time. I lit a cluster of fire bombs (dried seed-pods of a certain plant tied into a bundle) and threw them into the camp. In the same instant my friend and I both jumped up and fired as the enemies turned to see the fire bomb bounce across the ground. Our blasts each found their marks, hitting two guards in the back of their heads and bringing them to the ground. As quickly as we had jumped up, we each spun behind a tree as the fire bombs went off. Bits of burning sap, like napalm, splattered the surrounding area and stuck to our enemies shiny, synthetic armor. It would only stun them for a moment at best. We each darted out from behind our trees and charged the camp with a war whoop, whirling our staffs. I leaped into the air and just as my bamboo was about to connect with the first soldier's helmet, I heard a familiar voice in the distance. A female voice. My Mom's voice. "Braden's mom called! She says it's time for him to go home now!"
The jungle suddenly melted. The flames disappeared, our enemies vanished and my laser gun became nothing more than an L-shaped stick in my hand. The jungle trees were just a patch of tall willows in my back yard, the enemy camp nothing more than some logs around our fire ring. I turned to look at my friend to see disappointment in his eyes. We had battled hundreds of enemy soldiers, rescued countless villages and braved quests that not even Gandelf could boast of throughout the course of the afternoon. We had defied the rulers of the most formidable intergalactic empires. We didn't fear their legions of terror. But all it took was a few words from a grownup to change us from the bravest of warriors to simple 9 year-olds.
That was a normal afternoon in the life my 9 year-old self. 9 years later, here's how my day usually goes: wake up, go to school, try to stay awake, come home, eat, do homework, go to bed, repeat. In 9 years I went from living an action movie, to spending most of my waking hours at a desk. I'm growing up. Perhaps that's why I'm unhappy most of the time.

It only took a few words from a grownup to change Braden and I from crime-fighting assassins, from formidable battle robot pilots, from master Jedis into children. We all spend our lives in a world created by adults. From a young age they sit us down in desks and deluge us with grownup words like, "finance," and, "career," and, "future." And every time a child looks out the window to get a glimpse of the monkeys in the trees or starfighters in the sky, the adults snap their fingers and tell them to focus on what's real. But the reality they ask us to focus on is not the present. It's the future. Someday I will use geometry. Someday I will use a kinematics equation. But they are so focused on, "someday," that they lose sight of today.
To quote a wise turtle from my favorite kid's show; "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." I fear that most of the imagination has been educated out of me. I hope my preparation for the future doesn't rob me of the present. I want to enjoy every moment. Real or imagined. On Earth or the jungle moon of Endor. As an 18 year old student or kung fu master. I want the childhood me back. The one that wasn't afraid to imagine himself as a hero. The one that fought with ninjas, the one that never grew tired of Don't Touch the Ground, It's Lava. My life used to be an action movie. And if I can't fly for real, then I will fly in my mind. I want my childhood back. I want my crayons back. I want ME back.
I'm now on a mission to find my imagination. Somewhere in that 9 year stretch, I lost it. But I will find it. Piece by piece. And once I rebuild my imagination from the scattered lego pieces and the lost scraps of colored paper, my imagination can build me. The things that you can do when you are a six foot tall child with a driver's license are closer to the things I imagined as a child. It's already starting to come back. For instance, I recently ate lunch inside a cloud. Not an imaginary one. It was real.

As a child I stole from the enemy and used their weapons against them. The adults didn't trust us children with things like cars or cell phones at young ages because we would use them like children. But as we appear to become more like them, they grant us access to these fantastic privileges. Privileges granted on condition that we use them to become adults. Using these privileges to live like a child would be treason against adult nature. If I were a 9 year-old in 18 year-old skin, my car would be a weapon stolen from the world of the grownups. A weapon as potent as my laser gun, only this one won't disappear at a word from an adult. With my laser gun I could kill legions of bad guys. With my car I could go see some of the fantastic places that I imagined as a child. Beautiful places with massive trees, jungles who's canopies are bustling with monkeys, mountains that touch the clouds. I could pull a string of radio-flyer wagons behind, loaded with friends. Or take those friends far away  on a road trip. Why play pretend? Why day dream? Why stare out the window when my imagination isn't in my mind at all but happening in front of me? What if I used the weapons stolen from the adult's to actually live my dreams?
I will continue to steal from the adults. Bigger, badder weapons. A diploma. A college degree. A job. A passport. And I will use these weapons against them. I will use these weapons to build an empire. I will skydive in New Zealand. Play with monkeys in Nepal. Race fast cars in Tokyo. I will wage war on the grown up in me.  I can't help the fact that I will grow old but I refuse to grow up.