The Balloon Man

In the park on the waterfront, a small, wiry old man whose feet barely seemed to touch the ground was passing the strings to dozens of red, white, blue, green, orange, and purple balloons to a young, blond-haired, blue-eyed man, who, thin and emaciated, seemed to be in a great hurry. The vendor's puzzlement quickly changed to joy, as he eagerly grabbed the crisp hundred dollar notes and wished the thin, young man bon voyage.

A moment lasting several minutes made this scene appear awkward in the extreme. A small crowd had formed around the two, and people were watching, anticipating, and beginning to grow restive. Then, on cue (when all the waiting gets cut out), the balloons caught a strong wind from the west and were swept into an updraft carrying them high into the blue sky of a late-summer Saturday afternoon. The sound effects of those left on the ground confirmed a successfully entertaining take-off, and the thin, young man smiled to himself. From his great height, everything looked so different—actually, not so very different, because he'd seen the city many times from this vantage point on flights in and out. But what was different this time was that he had a much longer look at what lay beneath him.

Beyond the park, the city was busy. It was never not busy. Not that he could remember. The roads were thick with vehicles and there were many pedestrians and bicyclists on the go. People on balconies greeted and cheered him as he floated by, having no particular destination in mind—all that entrusted to the vagaries of the invisible wind currents that never reached agreement on speed or direction. Over Varsity Stadium, he watched nearly half a minute of a soccer match until all the players joined the crowd to look up into the bright sun to see the balloon man pass by. An authoritative voice spoke loudly and sternly to the balloon man directing him to come down ... safely ... and immediately. This elicited boos and shouts, silencing the voice until the shadow passed over and the referee's whistle restarted play.

Moving eastward he was carried over the serpentine highway that tracked the river all the way down to the great lake. Traffic was thickest here. It always seemed to be bumper-to-bumper to those who drove it, but on this day cars had stopped and people had gotten out of their cars not to yell at one another but to look and point at the sky. Here, too, the thin, young man was encouraged by the attention of the people on the ground. Feeling more comfortable in his travels, he freed one hand and waved to those below and behind. His path followed the river for a short distance before he got sucked into the canyons of downtown, and as he grew closer, the his fear grew. Navigating through all these buildings where there were likely to be all sorts of unpredictable and unseen airstreams would be frightening enough, but having no control over direction or speed would raise the intensity of his feelings exponentially. This was no moment for calm reflection. He was panicked, pure and simple.

Fortunately, he remained high enough to miss all but the taller office buildings and condos and of course all the wiring below that which kept the city humming day and night. From some of the office windows far above the city streets, he caught the attention of people working the weekend and enjoyed a delicious but fleeting moment of pleasure as his shadow passed over the bodies of sunbathers on the condo roof terraces. A gust from the north followed by another from the east interrupted his moment, and he and his balloons were blown into a tight corridor headed towards the city's famed telecommunications tower. An updraft, as if timed for his arrival, carried him aloft where he passed by the observation deck filled with open-mouthed little spectators who pointed and jumped up and down beside their parents. He tracked close to the tower for half-a-minute but it seemed much longer, because a new danger had emerged. He was being drawn in to the tower and quite naturally was imagining an imminent crash. A friendly burst of air pulled him loose and took him out over the open dome where a baseball game was in progress. At this height, he was too far away and too small to be a distraction, and regrettably, he didn't receive the attention he'd hoped for.

Another beneficial push from the east moved him safely off a collision course with the condos on the quay and he headed out to open water. But before he could get completely clear, he and his entourage were sent spinning wildly by the turbulence of a plane taking off from the island airport. He was close enough to feel the heat, and that sudden, alarming sensation cleared away the momentary calm he was expecting from here on. Once past the islands, and far enough out into the lake, he calculated that this was as good a place to get off as any. It had occurred to him that he could pull in the balloons and deflate them one at a time to control his descent. There were myriad sailboats and motor boats in the waters below. He just had to make sure he didn't become a target for one of those cruisers.

The water was cold and unexpectedly hard. It hurt. Some of it got up his nose and sent him into a coughing fit.

Upon subduing the reflex hacking, he opened his watery eyes and looked out at the green. Green? This wasn't the lake. Where was he?

Above the green was a circle of knees—skinny knees, fat knees, white knees, black knees, brown knees, hairy knees and smooth knees. Above that were faces ... faces that matched, and sometimes didn't match, the knees supporting them. As he gradually came to, he noticed that his hands burned and his palms were red. And his arms and shoulders ached tremendously.

The smells of barbecued meat wafted over in the gentle late afternoon breeze and settled on him, and he felt hungry and thirsty. Hungry, for the first time in days. How many days? He licked his parched, dry lips and guzzled the water handed down by a lanky, white arm not spilling a drop. It tasted as good as if it had ducked his head to drink from a cold mountain stream.

The balloons. They'd disappeared. No, when the circle around him loosened and broke up, he saw where they'd gone. The balloons were racing through the park, popping up among the trees, dancing around and through the playground, parading onto the ball fields, and attached were little people of various sizes, shapes and colours.