The Enigmatic Yet Inevitable Loss Of Imagination

• Charlotte Newey, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2020

STAGE 1
Children are born with the gift of Imagination. It is Wonder, Curiosity, Life, Youth and Freedom. They run around, making up games, playing dress-up. They wear bright colours, and look for the fun in everything. Faeries, dragons, witches, and knights dance around their heads. Beauty is seen in everything - bubbles, the sky, flowers. Curiosity drives them to learn and grow. They embrace their diversity, their own personal Wonder. Full of Life and Imagination. They have a certain spunk, a fire inside their souls. Burning strong and bright.
STAGE 2
There comes a time when you begin to lose that Youth. Kids turn into teenagers, where hormones run wild and that same Youth that used to course through their veins, begins to be restrained. The Curiosity that drove their brains for years is held back. The Wonder of the world around them is infiltrated by fear. The stories writing themselves in their brains come to a slow stop. The Freedom of diversity goes away. The pressure to do well, to impress, to be popular, smothers the flame. The Imagination, disappearing. And eventually that Life, that fire inside of them, begins to die.
STAGE 3
Young adults are a mystery. The wild, scary, yet exciting journey that is growing up, and leaving the nest fascinates them. They are once again, Free, and living Life with that spunk. Maybe the fire is growing once more.
It’s a puzzling time in Life, where people mature the most, but they also act their most juvenile. Perhaps, they begin to realise that their fire is burning out. Trying to substitute Imagination for immaturity. Trying to fabricate a Life they have already lost.
STAGE 4
When you lose your fire, you lose your dreams. Some adults are stuck in a job they hate, living a Life that bores them. Many try to teach their offspring how to live a Life that’s filled with Wonder, Curiosity, Freedom, Life, Youth - Imagination. Teaching something they lost. Trying to give their children the Life they didn’t get to live. But they forget - losing your Imagination is both an enigma, and inevitable.
STAGE 5
Then people start to grow old. There isn’t much else to it - they grow old, and the Wonder they saw in the world does too. And, when all the Wonder, Curiosity, Freedom, Life and Youth disappears, that is when their souls leave their bodies. No one knows where they go, but we know that the Imagination once alive in them, is restored. In an eternal Life, one with spunk and fire burning forever.
THE EXCEPTION
Somehow, there are a small few, who don’t lose the fire. And they keep burning. These anomalies accomplish exceptional things. They are forward thinkers, trend setters, and bold pioneers who lead the way. They are what we as a society should aspire to be. Wonderful, Curious, Free, and Youthful. Living a Life fuelled by the bright flames that are our Imaginations. And that, in and of itself, is truly a Wonder.