A little girl at the front row of the classroom ponders on what she wants to be, when she grows up. At barely the age of 6 years, she has a few limited options and her choice is mainly driven by her little, unexposed and ignorant mind.

“When I grow up I want to be a shopkeeper” she blurts out oblivious of the full classroom and the attention she just drew to herself. Everyone stares her way, a few nodding, a few shocked at the choice and many flabbergasted by her courage to want to be in control of all the candy in the stores. How dare she?

“I want to be a police man”

“I want to be a driver”

“I want to be a mechanic”

Within no time, the whole class is filled with names of different professions. From doctors, pilot, the president, all said with enthusiastic voices and dreamy images.

A shopkeeper?

She sits still, her dreams undisturbed as she tells on why she wants to become a shopkeeper.

A shopkeeper, she says, has the power to decide who gets what and who does not. Seated behind the counter, barely visible in the heap of merchandise, he looks down at small, short children as they try to point out a biscuit packet that is barely 6 inches from the ground. She wants control and her small brain can only imagine a shopkeeper as the holder to one. Innocently,  she dreams one. She has her superhero.

At the corner of the classroom, is a quiet boy, too quiet for the occasion. Hushed, he seems to follow as his classmates pour out their dreams and ambitions but never saying a word. Doesn’t he have a dream?

His gaze is cast on a back pack hanging loosely behind a chair. A half-filled water bottle sticks out of the half zipped bag, but his attention is drawn on the bag. On it is a graphic picture of spiderman, his arms stretched as he casts his web on a wall. That is it. When he grows up he wants to be spiderman. In the marvels of Marvel, he see his superhero that is unstoppable and unbeatable. For him it is not about the doctor at the clinic, or the teacher in his class, or the driver of the school bus; he wants want to be unstoppable, to walk on walls and fly over buildings.

His desk mate is half asleep on his desk and doesn’t have an idea of what is happening. His empty lunch box rests next to him, his drooled on exercise book desperately asking for a way out of the wetness and dog ears forming in its formerly neat pages. An incomplete drawing of an airplane is evident on the further right end of the book. Maybe he wants to become a pilot and fly huge air crafts or maybe he wants to be a rich man and travel in private jets. We will never know as his soft snores form a barrier from his sleepy dreams and day dreams. All the same he has a dream and a superhero.

Growing up, I wanted to work in a hospital. Being a clumsy kid, hospital visits were inevitable for wound dressing, redressing previously dressed wounds and dressing a new wound. The nurses were my superheroes. How they worked on my busted knees and fixed them was a miracle in the happening to my small brain and I knew I wanted to be a miracle worker like them. Back then, the image was vogue and foggy but years have helped demystify and clarify.

When I grow up I want to be a miracle worker who fixes not only broken arms but also broken hearts.

Who was your childhood superhero?

*****

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