Maybe it was being forced to watch that motherfucking, traumatizing The Red Balloon movie when I was in elementary school, or maybe it was watching the helium-filled balloons my parents got me slowly lose altitude and then shrivel and die until they looked like something out of Lifeforce (and not Mathilda May), but I never really cared for balloons. Sure, I liked filling them up with water and chucking them at friends, enemies, and anonymous cars driving through our neighborhood, but they were never a big source of joy.
So, eventually, I got around to writing a story about balloons. It was originally published in How to Die Well, but now you can read it for free on the site right here.
More later.
Bill B.