To infinity and beyond, for obvious reasons this phrase always made me think about space everytime I heard it. I saw a meme earlier today about the Toy story movie and immediately It leapt out to me remembering the time I was pranked as a kid about an eclipse.
The first time I heard the word eclipse I was in primary school. There was one major one coming up and it was such a big deal that we the kids were wondering what the whole fuss was about.
I remember watching the news and it was announced again that an an eclipse was coming up. What was this eclipse thingy everyone was going crazy about?
Then a stream of rumors began to flow steadily. Apparently many of our older siblings themselves hadn't experienced one and the adults who had decided to embellish their stories as much as they could.
At the end of the day, the only two things that was at least similar in all their stories was that the day would turn to night and secondly you couldn't look up directly at the sky because of some supposed radiation.
Whether these things were true or not, we didn't know. It already sounded like a one big joke, how did they expect us to believe that the day would suddenly turn to night.
We didn't believe the stories but it was one of the biggest events I waited for that year, the anticipation was just so intense.
The D-Day came and I was at home when the supposed eclipse began. To my observation there wasn't much to look at because although the sky was a lot darker than usual at that time of the day, it wasn't different to the way it usually looked when we were anticipating a rain.
Disappointed that it didn't live up to my expectations, I went in to sleep. When I woke up in what was supposed to be the next morning, voila the whole sky was already dark.
I rushed to meet my mum shouting that the eclipse had started.
My mum told me I'd woken up late and all my friends had already gone to school in the dark.
I quickly rushed in to take my bath and get dressed for school, I was so much of a hurry with different questions in my head.
How would the teachers teach in the dark?
How would we play football since everywhere was dark?
I was soon in my school uniform and even after my mum tried getting me to eat breakfast, I refused and was complaining that I was already late for school.
I picked up my bag and immediately I stepped out, I became confused.
All my friends were very much at home and playing around the street. What exactly was going on?.
My mum soon came out laughing . What was funny about the whole situation?, I soon got the gist.
Apparently I'd slept off in the earlier than I usually did which was in the afternoon and had woken up in the night.
But I was used to sleeping and waking up in the morning, so immediately I woke up and saw the dark sky, I had assumed it was already morning and the eclipse was responsible for the dark sky.
My mum had played a prank on me. All that rushing to bath and get ready for school had been for nothing.
The food I refused to eat as breakfast was actually dinner.
I walked back inside angrily proclaiming that I wasn't going to talk to anyone in the house and I wouldn't be eating her food again.
It only took all of thirty minutes to start questioning whether my anger was worth passing up a plate of rice and plantain.
In the end I agreed that dying of hunger wasn't a meaningful way to die, besides the food didn't offend me even though it was my mum that cooked it.