Pop the Bubble

 It was an odd view; two grown-ups standing below a small tree house. Did they come to cut down the tree? No, they were just staring at something between the abundant leaves; the tree house.

“Wow, we are here again, mate,” whispered Cat with her eyes full of excitement and glee.

“Yeah……” uttered Matt with his jaw dropped.

  Cat pulled her twin brother to the rope ladder. “Let’s go up to the tree house! I want to see if it’s the same as before.”

  “Are you serious? It will break! We are not 9-year-old kids anymore!” resisted Matt as he shook off Cat’s hand from him.

  “Hey, the tree house will be just fine. Let’s go up. Please?” begged Cat with sparkling eyes.

  “What if we fall? What if- OK. Alright, let’s go up,” Matt sighed, and stopped arguing when he cut the look of I-won’t-listen-to-you-anyway.   

So, they went up the rope ladder; one excited, and the other grumbling. When they crammed into the tree house, they were petrified there for two seconds. It was always Cat who broke the silence. “What the heck are they?” There were countless bubbles filling the small tree house. There were big bubbles, mini bubbles, white bubbles, yellow bubbles, and all kinds of bubbles. Cat and Matt just stared at the bubbles with their eyes popped out. Cat’s curious fingers tried to poke the mysterious bubbles, but Matt’s worried arms were faster.

“Don’t touch them! They are uncertain substances. You don’t know if they consist of toxic liquid or something,” warned Matt with way too serious face. Adults always love to use the word “uncertain.”Then what is certain to them? Poor Matt forgot he had to lower his body, and bumped into the low ceiling. Unfortunately, he popped an “uncertain substance” that was floating near the ceiling. The sound of something tumbling down covered the groaning of Matt.

“Look at this, Matt! It’s a sketch book! The sketch book fell from the bubble!” exclaimed Cat as she pointed at an old sketch book.

“You mean, from the bubble that just popped?” asked Matt to make this unbelievable thing sure. Cat nodded with assurance. She didn’t hesitate to open the sketch book. Two grown-ups, one wearing pretty dress, and the other holding camera, were drawn on the first page.

“This is our sketchbook. We drew this, our future,” said Cat silently as her eyes were fixed onto the amateur drawings. Cat slowly bent down and petted the drawing as if it was an adorable puppy. Matt sat beside Cat and stared the drawing of his future self which was drawn beside the drawing of future Cat. The precious memories woke them up.

 “I totally forgot about this drawing. How could I? It was so precious for us,” spoke Cat softly as she tasted the bittersweet memories of her childhood.

“But not now, Cat. We’ve got too many precious things. It’s time to go,” announced Matt as he stood up to be not caught by the tingling feeling that already started in his inner side.

“Can’t we just call back our memories for awhile? You know it is still so precious to us!” cried Cat as she shot up to glare at Matt. They didn’t notice something has changed because they were all caught up with their feelings. They were standing straight inside the small tree house without their heads bumping to the ceiling. This time, Matt was the first to notice the change.

“Cat, you grew short, and when did you braided your hair?” asked Matt with a frown.

“You look weird, too. You grew short and your hair is all messed up,” replied Cat. They turned to the dirty mirror hanging on the wall. Inside the mirror, they found the images of two child wearing over-sized clothes. They looked into the mirror and yelled. They saw each other and yelled again. They literally became children again! Cat’s feet stooped onto her long trousers, and she fell down as she waved her fist violently. Her long sleeves touched one of the bubbles and it popped with another thud. Cat didn’t fall down onto the wooden floor, instead, she fell down onto piles of clothes.

“The bubble dropped clothes this time…wait..what happened to my voice?” exclaimed Matt as he tried to help Cat to stand up. His voice wasn’t deep, low voice of a man anymore, instead, he squeaked in a high tone of a boy. Cat laughed so hard and was busy to tease Matt that she forgot about all the shock of becoming small. Matt, too, was busy defending himself in a squeaky voice that he absolutely forgot about the clothes and the bubbles. After a good amount of time of laughing and teasing, they realized they were still sitting on the clothes.

“So…what are these clothes?” asked Cat as she picked up one of the clothes. They soon found out the stack of clothes were all children’s clothes.

“Wait a minute. These are our clothes! Remember? We wore this when we were little kids,” shouted Matt with surprise when he found his old, favorite t-shirt from the piles of clothes.

“Oh, yeah, now I remember! I found my favorite dress!” exclaimed Cat when she picked up her worn out blue dress. They were again fallen into the memories of their childhood. “I believed that I could be a famous singer when I was wearing this blue dress. I danced and sing all the time when I was a little kid. Remember?” Cat’s lips smiled lightly as she spoke, but her eyes held deep sorrow.

“Of course, I do. I promised you that I would make you a movie star when I become a movie director, but I couldn’t keep that promise,” Matt murmured his last sentence. They silently agreed that remembering their childhood memories was a bittersweet thing to do.

“When did we become boring and stiff adults? We were so innocent back then. I didn’t want to become a grown-up like this. I thought it would be more exciting and fun when I become an adult, but, now, I’m just a mother and a housewife who gave up her career,” said Cat bitterly. She wanted to cry, but tears didn’t flow out of her hazel eyes because her tears dried of the drought in her heart.

“We were so innocent before we tasted the bitterness of life. I thought I would gain many when I become fully grown up, but, instead, I lost many. I lost innocence, fun, imagination, and excitement of life. The biggest thing I lost was the hope that I could reach my dream. Maybe that was the time I became such a stiff-hearted man,” confessed Matt. He struggled not to cry.

Silent mourning filled the room. No tear dropped from their eyes, but they were all sending their condolences to their passed childhood and their bitter adulthood. Matt suddenly reached out his hand and poked the bubble floating in front of him. The bubble popped as it dropped a small camera on his hands.

“Matt, this was your camera! You took videos of me dancing and singing. Does it have batteries? I hope we can watch those videos,” asked Cat with excitement. However, Matt was more delighted than Cat. He didn’t speak, but rubbed his precious camera as if it were a jewel.

“I…can’t… The battery died out, and I can’t watch those videos,” said Matt slowly.

Cat stared Matt’s face for a moment, and asked him, “Are you afraid? If you are-“

“No, I’m not. I’m not afraid that I would cry or something. It’s just some short videos. Why would I be afraid?” said Matt as he covered his deep fear that he might become to hate his reality to the stage he couldn’t bear.

“Matt, let’s be honest. I know both you and I are not satisfied with our lives, but you don’t have to hide those feelings. When I was thinking what would have turned wrong in our life, I found out we lost our dreams. That made our life even more tired and restless,” Cat caught a breath and continued, “Maybe you don’t want to acknowledge you hate your life right now, but how about changing our lives? I just had this in my mind,” finished Cat.

Matt’s eyes swirled with confusion of his feelings. When he set his mind, he asked, “Cat, you know it’s impossible to follow our dreams now. We have our families and our jobs.”

“No, Matt, I’m not suggesting you to follow your dreams and achieve them. I know it would be hard to follow dreams in our age, but we can keep them in our hearts because our dream, itself, is so precious to us that we can’t leave it behind us. Planting dreams in us will bring energy and delight in our lives.” Cat’s eyes sparkled brightly if she had already planted her priceless dream on her heart.

Matt and Cat stepped out of their small tree house. Their bodies went back to their fully grown up size. The bubbles disappeared, but the sketchbook, the red dress, and the old camera didn’t. They were carried out of the tree house by Cat and Matt. Their dreams, like transparent bubbles, floated sparkling inside the two grown-ups. The summer’s golden sunbeam lay upon the two siblings’ heads to encourage their new start.