Wonder

Climbing a tall tree, like a mountaineer determined to conquer its peak, I leaped higher and higher. Reaching the highest point was all I could envisage. I was no longer me - but the astonishing movie star I had watched time and time again – marveling at her moves as she jumped heights. Holding my breath awhile I released it with a shout ‘wonder woman-n-n’, jumping from tree.

As I flew in the air the ‘wonder woman’ shout turned into frightened ‘aaaaaaaaaaa’ screams. It is good I fell unconscious, because I did not know how I would have dealt with the immediate pain, let alone the shock that I could not fly like wonder woman.

I was rushed to Kabwe General Hospital unconscious. When I regained conscious later on, the feel of my sore limbs and brokenness, told me I could have died doing that stunt. ‘I had gotten too close to wonder woman – and almost died’ I told myself. It dawned on me then – that wonder woman was just fiction… everything I had intensely watched and longed to be in her was an illusion.

Now I understood what the word PG meant and ought to have guaranteed on films. Parental Guidance stood at the corner of every revealing movie, looking on, a helplessly plain abbreviation – marked PG. It reminded of the mini running lines below an alcoholic drink ‘not to be taken if you are below 18 years.’

It was a warning not core to the reality. The reality displayed often showed the best moments in life. The view offered was one of an excitement hard to resist, calling out to be tapped into and celebrated. No wonder PG or any other warning for that matter, ever made much sense until the illusion in the movies and adverts had been sampled and blended into the recipient’s personhood.

Dr. Olsson Peter’s testimony taken from his clinical experience as a psychiatrist actually made sense. He had said that children often identified with certain television characters, victims or victimizer. I had identified with Wonder woman and made quite a wonder of fractures to my body. The reflection upon the zeal and quest I had, to become this incredible heroine only to wake with stitches and aches, made me shudder even as an adult now. Like a child excited by fire I had played with the fire and unbelievably by chance lived to tell.