Inside most supermarkets and wholesale clubs stand solemn grey machines that collect bottles and spit out a few coins. I was captured by the process of a bottle leaving my mother’s hands and being turned into a few coins that plopped into the holder. In between was the mysterious rumble of the machine. What was inside? Was Oscar the Grouch munching on my cans? Were Luke and company from Star Wars stuck in the shrinking compactor? I started breathing heavily in anticipation. The possibilities were endless. It was in that moment I decided the bottle return would be my greatest game yet.     

Growing up I often made up games or watched imaginary television shows in my mind. Family trips were spent staring at speeding cars on the highway, always checking to see if they were in the middle of a car chase. I dodged invisible bullets from my car seat and shielded my brother to protect him from the explosives hurled at us. It might have been an excuse to annoy him, but I let my imagination flow. I lived in a world where anything could happen and where my mind always had the power to create a more interesting story.  

As soon as my mom handed me the next bag, I grabbed my brother and dashed to the machines. I told him a tale about a monster who lived in a forest for many ages and became curious about humans. He journeyed through the woods and swam through the swamps, eventually finding his way up sewage drains and into the bottle return. This slimy black beast, who resembled the supervillain I feared most growing up, Venom, dwelled in the darkness and munched our cans. Yet he would always pay for his meals. The object of the game was to make him move between bottle returns, which were connected by underground pathways throughout the supermarket and the whole city. My little brother was forbidden to stick his hand in the door, lest it be chomped off or he be dragged down into the dark maze, the great city of the can-eating monsters.

As I drew my story to a close, my brother looked at me grinning with excitement. As he jumped up and down and tugged on my sleeve, I knew that my tale had done its job. We simultaneously reached for the bottles and went to work. From the giggles that I heard as the cans flew out of our hands, to the gentle tug from my brother to lift him up to the machine opening, we were happy. At times I would place my bottle in the wrong way, so that the monster would take my brother’s can instead. He looked up, quickly threw in his can and knocked at the bottom, hoping the monster would knock back.  I smiled, sometimes even squatting down to knock on the machines right next to him.   

The days when my little brother and I would get excited over the bottle return game are now gone. The perfect playmate who used to beg me to create more games has become a confident teenager who believes he can beat me in anything. The made-up stories and imaginary TV shows have also gone, but I value my imaginative childhood. Every time I look at the bottle machines, I see the hidden beasts living within, and when I am on the road I think of all the Mission Impossible films I have lived through. Looking to the next chapter, I hope to remain the boy who could pose questions and solutions without fear of consequences. I want to tell intriguing stories to inspire people’s imaginations and move them to action. Like the labyrinth beneath the bottle returns, I look forward to discovering those paths and connections through my studies and my life.