Being a Youth: A Gift of Time (Creative Nonfiction)

“Clap your hands for the newest athlete in town as he makes his jump for our top gift of the day!” My friends are always good at hyping.

Pexels

Though we were all so young, we all had fun by playing several games. But our games are like trouble traps which can snap any moment.

As youths, we play several risky games like wrestling and this particular one, high jump!

We have some girls we had crush on and vice versa. But the difference between me and my friends and those ladies is that we do silly things to impress them back then.

Like a kid without the leading of an adult, we believe we can do anything we like just to show the girls how powerful and ‘worthy’ we were.

The girls however, push us to do silly things, like share from our money, food and even carry stuff for them.

To digress a bit, I can say that really was like a good foundation for me when it comes to understanding women. Both the good and the bad sides.

Away from the ladies, I remember Ayo was once at the hospital for hitting his head on a slab. The funny thing is, at first, we were afraid of what happened to him.

“Hope you are going to be alright?” While we paid him a visit at the hospital, like every caring friend and human, I showed my care and others also inquired about his feelings.

But like a man pretending to be sick and later revealing his true state of health, Ayo slapped me on my back, “don’t think I forgot about our wrestling match, I am still going to take you down!”

We all laughed and that was how we all stopped getting afraid of getting injured.

At the moment in life, I belief we had the gift of time which was our youthful age and ability to heal.

But on this fateful day which I had a long jump, the story changed. The event was like a life changing experience for us all, it sobered us.

As I was busy enjoying my friend’s hype and confirming that the girls which were the target of the show have their attention on me.

Like an expert athlete about to make a great jump, I took three stylish steps backward and began to run for the high jump.

For our high jumps, we have someone bend their backs and we jump over. For some obvious reasons, I decided to pick Sulaimon, one of the tallest guys among my friends, of course I wanted to impress the girls.

But, as I was running towards him, getting nearer for the jump, I realized his back was a bit too high than I imagined.

I should have bailed out but like a man on a mission, I decided to bravely go for the jump. Like an evil catalyst, I heard the voice of Joy, one of the girls I was crushing on, “you can do it!” She screamed.

As I made the jump and I was about landing, like a sudden revelation, I already knew something unpleasant was going to happen.

I landed on my right hand and due to the speed, I rolled for a few seconds before realizing what had happened! My right hand wasn’t the same again, I could feel the pain.

“I should have known that I can’t do it,” I said to myself amidst crying. “I’m so sorry,” were the words of Joy, somehow, I had a feeling she felt guilty for whatever reason.

Although I was in pain, a part of me felt like I had achieved my aim of getting Joy’s attention.

I was taken to the hospital and had an x-ray, which showed I had a dislocation. Looking at my mum’s face, I knew she wish she could scold me but the state at which I was couldn’t allow that.

Like a call for deep thoughts, the incident sobered all my friends as I carried the Pop bandage all round for about a month.

When the whole bandage was removed, my right hand was so thin. “Is there a way I could feed my hand?” The doctor and my mum bursted into laughter.

“Don’t worry, it’ll return to normal size in no time,” like a kind soothsayer, the doctor calmly replied.

It wasn’t a pleasant experience and even though I didn’t get the gift for the jumping contest, I am grateful for the gift of the time to heal and the gift of being a youth.

Having such injury for whatever reason at a later stage in life would have been a totally different story.