Yellow Balloon
2024 Write Now Winner - Grades 5 & 6
“Daddy, Daddy! Look what I found!” The boy waves a bag in front of his father. “Balloons!” The father smiles warmly at his child; such an innocent soul. He blows one up, a cheerful yellow one, and ties it to a string. The boy holds it tightly and dances with joy. “I’m gonna love this balloon forever!” He exclaims, lifting his hands into the air. The string slips from his grasp and begins floating upwards. He jumps up to catch it, but it is already out of reach. “My balloon.” He sadly watches it lift into the sky and beyond until it disappears behind the clouds. “Will I ever see it again?” he asks his father. “Who knows? The world is a magical place.”
The boy is older now, in his first year of high school. He is sitting in the hospital with tear-stained cheeks. His father lies motionless on a stiff white bed. The cancer has gotten worse, and his days are numbered. He holds his father’s hand as it gets colder and colder, but refuses to let go. A machine beeps slower and slower. He looks up at his mother, unable to bear the sight any longer. “Will I ever see him again?” he asks. She does not hear him or does not answer, and they sit in silent grief. That night, he lies awake in bed and wishes that life could be simple, that he could live in a storybook tale and have a happily ever after, and that he could see his father again.
He wakes up the next morning feeling weighed down by invisible hands, with no appetite for breakfast. He trudges slowly to school with his head down, crossing streets drenched with rainwater. Then suddenly, the world swirls around him. Leaves dance in the wind and he falls hard onto the pavement. He opens his eyes to find himself lying in a flower-dusted meadow, staring up at a sky bluer than he’d ever seen in the city. Far in the distance, he can hear indistinct chatter drifting from marketplaces, and beyond that, he sees a castle like the ones he’d read of in fairytales.
He shakes off the gray city raindrops lingering on his backpack and races toward the castle. My wishes have come true,he thinks and walks through tall, oaken double doors. The ornate hallways are dappled with precious gems and draped with intricate tapestries. Suits of armor line the edges of the endless hallways, and he is baffled by all the arches and carvings tucked into their architecture. But all of the castle’s enchantment seems to fade away when he sees a figure ahead of him. “Dad?” he calls out. His father turns around and wraps him in a tight hug. “I missed you, son.” “What is this place?” he asks, and the father replies, “Let me show you.”
The father takes him to the base of a towering mountain. Dragons circle the twin peaks in the distance like hawks to their prey. “Imagine the view from up there.” They hike up the mountain in the late afternoon sun, which slowly sinks as they slowly rise. Finally, they stop on a cliff. The boy settles onto the grassy cliff, his wide eyes taking in the breathtaking expanse before him. Enchanted forests line the horizon. The setting sun shines a warm, gold coat on the castle. He can live in this fantasy world forever, he can tame a dragon and name it Vermillion, he can learn magic, he can befriend wizards, he can do anything he could ever imagine! But then he remembers his mother, his friends, his dreams. He can’t leave them behind.
The boy looks out on the magical lands below him. They are sitting upon a clifftop, overlooking it all. Wisps of clouds brush against the tips of their shoes, and invisible paint brushes color the sunset. “I love you, son,” says the father. The son leans against him and says, “I love you too, Dad,” he says, “but this isn’t real.” The father turns to him in confusion. “What do you mean?” He repeats, “This isn’t real. I wish it could be, this place is perfect…” He looks back down at the mystical lands below. “…but I have to keep going. The world must go on without you.” His father begins to say something, but his silhouette melts away. The forests, the dragons, the castles, the markets, and the mountains all vanish. “I’ll miss you,” says the boy, and then he, too, dissolves into the sunset.
He awakes with a start. As his eyes focus, he finds himself in a room all too familiar, in a bed too stiff and white. “He's awake!” His mother is next to him. “Mother.” His eyes blur again, this time with tears. “You scared me half to death, young man! We thought we'd lost you, too," she scolded, but she wasn't angry. “What happened?” he asks as he hugs her tightly. "You were hit by a car on the way to school, oh, I’m so glad you’re okay.” She looked down, “I couldn’t have handled losing you so soon after…'' She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
The boy is a grown man now, and the turns of gears fascinate him. He found himself a job at an elevator company and now works as an inspector. He hands the construction manager a filled-in sheet. “The lift’s good to go, all the parts are working.” The manager thanks him and begins skimming it. He then hops in his car and drives home. The man enters his apartment and looks out the window in thought. People are like balloons. You cherish them dearly and hold them close, but they don’t last forever. Someday, the wind will blow them away, and you have to let go, or they’ll take you with them.
In the distance, the man sees something drifting in the wind. A cheerful, yellow balloon.