The World is Yours.

STORYTIME: Travel with me to Imagination

There were once two girlfriends travelling together in a time before they had children. They were deliciously irresponsible, fliting around the world, two caravan-gypsies, sitting on this plane and that train. 

Today their train was going nowhere. Oh, they bought tickets to somewhere, but Singapore with its efficient-no gum on the pavements-tie your laces-mind your manners country somehow managed to have a train that was not running on schedule. Their train sat obstinately idle between two stations, rebelling from its clipped timetabled surroundings. Or waiting for another train to pass or a change of signal. Or perhaps it was waiting for the will to continue down the track.

Whatever.

The girls were not bothered. The destination was never the point anyway. They simply liked movement. And they had both been the Singapore zoo before.

So, there they sat, drinking in scenes outside the graffiti-free windows, shoving each other playfully and saying things like, "Wouldn't it be great if you could get a seat like this on the trains in Hong Kong?"

They both worked there slaving away behind bars... actually, that's not true. They both worked in Hong Kong loving most minutes of teaching at an international school. But carrying on a love/hate type affair with this city of people, people and more people. The city that never found cause to sleep or even bow its head in rest unless of course, you counted the napping-Chinese lucky enough to be sitting down on some form of public transport.

"If I were a queen we would both always get seats on the train," said the first girl.

"If you were queen?" The second girl laughed.

"Okay then, you can be a queen too. What would you do if the world was yours?"

"I am a queen and the whole world is mine?"

"Yep, the whole world." The first girl stretched her arms wide.

"Do I have to keep Hong Kong on the planet?" the second girl asked.

They both laughed at that one because without their city of taxis and dripping air conditioning systems they would never have found each other. And besides, deep down they loved Hong Kong.

"Seriously. What would you do if the world was yours?" the first girl asked again.

The train started moving sometime after. It must have. But neither of the girls noticed the clean streets going by. They were too busy re-planning the world. 

Whole systems of politics and organizations with steel teeth and large appetites were being destroyed. The starving were fed and the homeless were housed. Because naturally, the Hurting and Hopeless were top priority.

The two young queens dreamed in animated conversation. Lengthy dreams that would turn presidents grey with the weight of their expectations. 

Simple dreams where grass grew right down the middle of tree-lined streets and every man held the door open for every lady. If she wanted them too, of course. A world where roses in vases where mandatory and queuing in lines was completely banned.

And lastly, before they stepped off that Singapore train, they turned to each other and said, "We would always get a seat on the trains in Hong Kong."

They were queens after all.

What about you? Do you remember a time when you dreamed that the whole world was yours? Do you need to dream again?

BTW- True story. Ode to my girlfriend Michelle and all her fantastical questions :) Remember when we dreamed the world was ours?

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