By Nishi Patel
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I am soaring through the sky, higher and higher, and then a pause, before I hurtle back toward the black bed of a trampoline. My hands snap apart, my knees go sprawling, and giggles ripple through the air, because I, the best popcorn kernel, have been popped.
This was one of the first games that I played on my new trampoline.
It arrived in my garage
one morning when I was eight. I begged and begged my father to open the box,
and eventually, he did. What a day that was. All my neighbors came over to help
build it at noon, whilst my friends and I watched. The house was bustling with
activity: dads and older siblings worked on construction, children ran amok,
and mothers offered reprimands. As I waited, I anxiously chewed my cheeks,
recalling the horror stories and catastrophic injuries I had seen on YouTube.
Once the net was installed, I sighed in relief, feeling much more comfortable
as I climbed inside. When it was finally done, we jumped and jumped, propelling
each other into a blossoming orange sky. How grateful I was for the net!
Every summer after, the
trampoline seemed to be the only thing that pulled us from our screens. My
house became a hub of sorts– people coming and going, leaving the doors open
and my mother exasperated. My neighbors jumped whether I was home or not!
One summer, my neighbor,
Suvasini, taught us a game called Mummies. It was a quiet day with no
roughhousing, so my brother was allowed to join. I was chosen to be the first
mummy, and she, along with our younger brothers, jumped around me chanting,
“Mummy, mummy, close your eyes, count to five and come alive!” I chased after
them, crashing into the net until I finally tagged someone.
My best friend, Rushi,
and I played every summer. We would promise our parents we were working on
summer homework, only to rush through it so we could run outside. We rode bikes
for hours with whoever happened to be around. At her house, we ate mint chocolate
chip ice cream and made slime. At mine, we ate Neapolitan and jumped on the
trampoline. When the sun began to set, children of all ages gathered at my
house. A favorite game seemed to be launching us younger kids into the air,
which startled me so, but I obliged, happy to be included and whispering silent
thanks to whoever installed the net around the perimeter of the trampoline.
Everything seemed to calm down as the leaves turned brown in the fall. The chatter subsided, the doors stayed closed, and my backyard was left barren as we all returned to school. These days were special because it was just my brother and me. He was still young enough then to obey my commands with little convincing. My personal favorite game was Close Your Eyes and Look at the Sun, coined by yours truly. It went like this: you closed your eyes and faced the sun, seeing red, soaking in the light, and letting it warm you while you pretended it wasn't too cold for a t-shirt. When my brother, bored and squeamish, could no longer sit still, I would announce, “Open your eyes!” and the world would be blue. When it faded away, we repeated the process. The magic of seeing the world doused in shades of blue never wore off, until it did. When this game ended, he begged me to help him land a front flip. I spent hours coaching him and taking countless action shots of him upside down.
Every winter seemed to
test the trampoline's strength. We watched it dip dangerously low under the
weight of every snowfall, but in the spring, it would bounce back without fail,
ready for yet another summer.
The summer before sixth
grade, my friend, Katy Barnhill, came over to watch the fireworks during the
Fourth of July. Back then, they were set off at the VFW, only a little way from
my house and clearly visible from my backyard. This was my very first time
inviting a white friend from school over for a sleepover. I felt her hesitance
as she walked through my house, hearing my grandfather mutter in another
language and seeing foreign gods plastered on the walls. But her familiarity
returned as soon as she saw the trampoline. Outside my house, we could be
suburban kids, one and the same. We set up sprinklers beneath the trampoline,
and the water sprayed through the bed, turning it into a slip-and-slide. We
learned that the water made the trampoline much more springy, a wondrous
discovery! We ran and jumped and slid, crashing into the net. Fireworks burst
above us, for the last time before they moved to McAllen Park, and I paused to
encapsulate the moment that I deemed a “normal” experience.
The summer melted away once more, and my brother
and I returned to stare at the sun. I was adamant on basking in the last of the
sunlight, while my brother wanted to stay in and watch Beyblades. After much
convincing, I opened the gate only to be hit with the thickest smell of pumpkin
waste I had ever experienced. I swallowed my pride, wrinkled my nose, and led
him to the trampoline. Rather than be engulfed by sunlight, we were engulfed by
the stench, almost warm in its thickness, and after a few minutes of
suppressing gags, I let us go back inside and attach our faces to the
television once again. The next day at school, someone said, “I hate living in
Morton. The pumpkins smelled so bad yesterday!” I was absolutely buzzing with
excitement as I slowly nodded my head in agreement.
The winter came, leaving
the trampoline slightly weaker. On a particularly windy day in March, it blew onto
our neighbor's roof. It was damaged further, and when it turned upright, the
poles holding up the net were bent; some had even snapped. The net in question
bore new, significant tears. We fixed it up, but the ordeal marked the
beginning of its decay.
The summer before eighth
grade, I hardly used it anymore; Rushi was in high school now, and I had a
shiny new Snapchat account to occupy me. My brother and his friends were older
now and had become absolute ruffians. Under their reign, the net was torn to
shreds with multiple springs snapped, but miraculously, it survived to see
another fall.
When the air chilled, my brother and I returned
to the trampoline. This time, we set up slow-motion videos as he tried to land
the backflip we had been chasing. I directed him carefully to rotate more and
extend his legs. Finally, he landed it. As he cheered and hoorayed, landing one
after the other, I smiled for him, ignoring the bittersweet feeling that often
creeps in when you finally complete something you've been chipping away at for
years.
That winter brought the
most snow I had ever seen. Each day was precarious, as the trampoline slowly
oscillated under the weight of the ice and snow. One morning, my brother burst
into my room
, throwing pillows and shouting.
“Guess what! Guess what– the trampoline ripped!”
When the snow melted,
the large tear running through the center of the trampoline became very
apparent.
Feigning indifference, I turned to my father and asked, “Will we get a new one?”
He looked at me with
genuine indifference and said, “You're too old to jump on a trampoline.”
And that was the end of that.
About the Author
