When I was a little boy I always wanted a helium balloon. I never had any. Somehow, my parents always avoided to buy me one. I suppose that they did not want to take the risk that I'd lose it and begin to cry. It's the irony of the balloons. The children know that the balloon will explode at any moment, but even so they do ANYTHING in order to get one. It is fascinating how much they mean for a kid. Something as simple as a rubber bag full of air. So simple, but something that provides so much diversion at the same time… and how tragic it is to lose it. How sad when that moment arrives, that we denied in our minds. That we simply did not accept. We wanted it to last forever. But it was a futile idea, and we did not escape from reality. Of all the helium balloons, some especially called my attention. Those that had left the hands of their owners and were floating up to the sky, higher and higher, until they got lost among the clouds. Getting lost. One of the greatest fears of a child and of an adult also. Did you ever go astray, at least for an instant, being found out of the protective presence of your parents? Sure that you did. Do you remember that terrible sensation of anguish that seized us just then? The terror set against the possibility of never returning again to the sure company of our parents, to find us defenseless to dangers that perhaps we didn't even know? Well, the story that I am going to tell has a lot to do with that sensation. And with the helium balloons of course. There was upon a time a helium balloon. When it was born, they hitched it to a bunch of other newborns helium balloons. It never felt comfortable with this. Being tied did not please it. Besides, the breeze blew, making it hit against its brothers. They did not seem to care about this. They were like little puppies waiting for a kiddo to buy them and play with them. But for the balloon, the string that held it was a fetter that kept it from going to those places that it longed for. And, how curious is life!, it happened to be that the string was tattered in a point and it snapped. The balloon did not think about it two times and left flying, toward its freedom, toward its dreams. Its happiness was so much that it almost explodes. Finally, it would be able to reach the places that it only had dreamed in its helium-filled-interior! It was going high, challenging gravity, while humans and other balloons continued tied to the ground. At first, some child noted him up in the sky and stared at it for a while. Until the buildings or the clouds covered it. Or until the sunlight dazzled their eyes. Or simply until they lost interest in continuing watching, which did not take a lot of time. And the balloon continued going up, each time getting further away from the planet. Of that world full of children and of balloons and other strange creatures. And soon, nobody there remembered the balloon anymore. It was an alien entity, ignored. And the balloon continued going up, crossed the terrestrial atmosphere and found itself into space. It was more beautiful than it had thought, and more terrifying than it had imagined. It saw the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Venus. It saw galaxies, nebulas, white dwarves, saw stars being born and dying, in an spectacle only witnessed before by Gods. And the balloon continued going up. And years passed, decades, centuries and for some reason, the balloon did not explode. Could it be possible that God had forgot that it existed?
Now the balloon realized that it would be wandering for always in the nothingness. There wasn't anything around him anymore. It didn't know how much time had passed since it had abandoned that place. That place where it was born and that in spite of all, was the only thing that sometime had been its home. And now it would never return there. And while the time passed, the helium balloon simply continued floating in the desolate immensities of the infinite. And thus it was forever, wandering, floating, going up. In the nothingness. Alone. Eternally.
Lucy Phermann ©2005
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