Childhood Story

Yay! It’s finally Friday, so I thought I should forget about school and tell a little story from my childhood. Ready? I feel like I’m about to tell a bed time story…

When I was maybe only 6 years old, my brother and I went to spend a week of our summer vacation with my aunt. Kids in India are not told to stay near their house and to not talk to strangers, because when you live in a village, everyone just knows everyone else. Well, towards the end of the week, we had a brilliant idea to check out the swamp that was not too far from the outskirts of the village. Obviously, you can see that this was not going to end well… but I wasn’t a very bright child when it came to safety (clearly). So that afternoon my brother and I left the house along with our cousins, and made our way to the swamp. This is a picture of how the swamp looked like:

The swamp as I remember it... and us (not drawn to scale)

Pay attention to the nest full of eggs, it’s very important. We got to the swamp and basically looked around at the nastiness. The ground was raised where we were standing but there as a straight downward plunge to the bottom only a few feet away from us. The ground fell downward right into the swamp. So, we looked around at all the nasty things in the swamp. There was mold and mildew and algae and gross bugs that fly around, but as a kid, you know that all this stuff was the SHIZZLE!!! And then, as we were getting bored, one of my cousins spotted the nest full of eggs that some poor bird had assumed would be safe because they were basically on the side of a cliff that only a moron would try to climb down from. And my cousin was that moron…

He got dared to climb down and try to get the eggs. OK. When I remember stuff like this, I realize how impaired the brain of a little kid really is. But to be fair, my cousins were at least 12 or 13 at the time, so they should’ve known a little better. But no! So, my cousin starts slowly climbing/sliding down the cliff structure to try to reach the eggs. Everything was going okay and I had stepped away because I got bored of looking at him trying to climb down when I suddenly heard frightened gasps. I ran back to where everyone was standing and looked down to find my cousin barely hanging onto a branch from a tree as he tried not to slip right into the murky waters of the swamp. Of course, then were was bussle and commotion and a everyone tried to find a big enough branch to try to pull him up onto the flat area that we were all standing on. As the frantic search continued, my cousin hung onto the branch and tried to push up with his feet. I don’t think I have ever been as frightened as I was on that day though my entire childhood.

Thankfully, someone found a branch and we all pulled to haul him up to the level ground. As soon as the immediate danger was over, we all ran around (I’m sure it was due to adrenaline) and celebrated our victorious rescue attempt. See, this is why being a kid is so much fun. One minute you’re about to die but the next, you’ve forgotten about that completely and you’re enjoying life again.

We came home that day a little bit bruised, but only after having taken an oath to not tell anyone about what happened. It’s funny how, in our minds, the thought of being punished still outweighed the risk of being dead. So, we never talked about that day again and I haven’t thought about it in so long. I look back on that day now and wonder if I would have the courage to stand on the edge of the swamp now; now that I know the consequences of my actions, now that I’ve matured enough to understand the concepts of being hurt and being dead. I don’t think I would be able to do that again, so I’m glad I had my adventures as a kid. 

See, was that a nice story? And then they lived happily ever after until they got to the house and the aunt asked why the all the neighbors had seen them walking towards the swamp... I actually cannot for the life of me remember how we answered that question and got away with it. hehehehe. I wish I still had those genius "talk my way out of trouble" skills, but alas, I shall have to make do with the fact that now I have a brain that I can use to stay out of trouble in the first place.