Sylvia Wynter's Dream

Prompt: Setting is more than a place, it’s sensory.

In Kindergarten, there was a lion that was being kept in the dungeon under the dancing studio. Well, that is what we all believed. My teacher would take all the naughty students to visit the lion if they misbehaved.

Well, I feared that room and I listened with trepidation as my classmates told me stories of this lion. Nobody really wanted to be taken there and unfortunately, I was sentenced to that fate. After a day of being a naughty chatterbox, my teacher told me and some of the other delinquents that she would be taking us to see this lion.

I could hear my heart fighting to jump out of my ribcage at this revelation. I could taste the impending doom on my tongue and that silenced me. A tiny foot before the other, over and over and again, and suddenly I was in the line with the other students who shared the same fate. We were all silenced, except for a little boy who was always sent to that room. He had no fear and he seemed excited to see this lion again.

A stampede of tiny footsteps went down the school hall. We passed the other classes of children, who I would rather switch places with at that point in time. We heard the day going by as if everything was normal, when I believed that I was going to be fed to a lion. The chatter of the students filled the hall, laughter as a class shared a  joke, the smell of the chickens that were being fried in the canteen filled my nose. I salivated at the thought of freedom and I despised the situation that I was in.

Now, we were out of the school’s building, and we had to cross a field to get to the dance studio. The large field of green grass seemed to buy me more time from this doom. We continued to walk in a line across the field. Suddenly, the realization hit me. I would not survive this encounter with the lion! The large green field suddenly felt small as we were halfway across it. I looked back at the school building, and I made a decision that would change my life forever! I didn’t even think. I just ran! I ran as fast as I could and I ignored the chants of “Brittney!” as they called after me.

I made it to my class safely without ever seeing that lion. However, now I know it was just the Mandela effect. There wasn’t a lion at our school. It was just a tactic to keep us well behaved! I should have known because I had never heard the lion roar when I went to dance classes. However, as a child, I believed. This story has a huge impact on my life as I attended that institution for 13 years. Whenever I passed that dance studio, I would laugh and remember the story of how my class got tricked.