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Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation

Friday, July 31, 2020



When I was growing up, we lived in a subsidized housing apartment on the eighth floor but since then, I have not lived in a high-rise and miss some aspects of it. Living that high up provided my sister and me an unusual source of entertainment as well especially out in the balcony. My mother used to decorate the balcony in the summer with multiple baskets of colourful annuals and plastic grass carpeting so that our imaginations could transform the place into our secret garden. We enjoyed countless tea parties with our barbie dolls and other stuffed toys while imagining we were princesses of distant lands gathered there that day to discuss important political events between our kingdoms. Our discussions would range from who would host the next Barbie horse races and how to defeat the evil queen who was always preying on our lands. 

    It was also exciting looking over the railing at the vastness of Greater Toronto before us and the CN Tower off into the distance. The world seemed so massive to the little self that I would sit at my window and ponder over its size and life. I could gaze out in the summers and watch the clouds rolling in ominously with the low rumble of the thunder warning us of what was about to happen. Then just as suddenly, there would be flashes of lightning and the show would begin with a sudden downpour of a wall of warm water that would drench you down to your toes. The lightning would be both terrifying and awe-inducing especially when I would curl up on the top bunk bed beside the window and watch the powerful display before me while letting the energy of the storm absorb into my ever wild imagination. 

But our world changed and became even more exciting after an unusual circumstance. My sister and I were fighting for a few days because she recently developed an obsession for ripping off my Barbie doll heads and chewing them. As we were fighting, she ran out into the balcony and tossed one of the heads over the rail. We both stood there watching the doll head drop all the way to the first floor in silence. For some reason, we were mesmerized. We were so mesmerized we decided to throw other things off the balcony just to watch them fall including the rest of the detached Barbie doll heads. 


    After this first event, we became true scientists by throwing objects of various weights and shapes to see what would fall faster and we began creating races. A girl who lived a floor below us and across noticed our secret games and decided she wanted to join in as well so now there were three of us participating in this thrilling game. One of my other close friends, whose balcony we could not see, apparently was also partaking in her own secret and her item of choice was tomatoes. My sister and I did get caught eventually and were seriously reprimanded by our mother as she watched our antic horrified and so I stopped.

    My sister, however, did not want to let this activity end and would find times to sneak out to the balcony to continue her secret venture. After my brother was born, she found new and more creative objects to throw one of which was my brother's wrapped used diapers. It just so happened that one day while happily absorbed in her game, she threw a dirty diaper off the balcony and it landed on the superintendent as he was walking by. He was furious and happened to catch a glimpse of the girl and balcony where the bomb could have been thrown from. He called my mother and angrily stated the events that had occurred and my sister, hearing my mother on the phone ran and hid in one of the closets. After the phone call, my angry mother stomped around the two-bedroom apartment trying to find her while also yelling that the police would be here any minute to catch her. My sister squeezed herself into the corner of the closet and hid under some clothes so that my mother would not be able to find her. 

    This ended our experimentations on the balcony as we were supervised when spending time out there for a few weeks and thus had to move forward and discover new hobbies to entertain ourselves by. But to this day, my mother still doesn't understand why we were so into throwing objects off the balcony and still gets frustrated thinking about it. 


Until Next Time,






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