Story Book #2
Balloon-Chapter-1/1

They ran far behind me. Their voices reached me feebly, barely slithering through the walls of fog that hid their faces. Their wails and cries blurred in the remnants of the breeze. They had been the only reminders of my earthly existence in this spectacle of solitude and desolation, so I felt somehow disoriented when their presence vanished. The sky was grey and the sun livid. Clouds felt heavy like clay and air stuck to my skin.

I was lost in this thick miasma of fine grains that left an aftertaste of dust. Nothing in it was repulsive enough to upset me, but irritation was building up as it filled me. I wiggled around, trying to shake it out, to no avail, so I judged better to wait. While I distractedly contemplated my situation, the sky started to clear up. I felt like emerging from the muddy bottom of a pond to clearer waters. There, the sun drew fantastic curves on the cerulean ceiling.

Air now wrapped my body like water, sliding over my skin, slowly rinsing away the sandy memories of that infect soup. The flow dragged me left, then right, then left, and so forth. The light made everything warmer, including me. Electrified by the gleaming waves, air got somehow more excited than necessary, and the motion became more violent. It wrapped me and shook me, like an overly eager child with his new puppy, and made me a bit nauseous.

The wind was continuing to agitate me, and then the blue sky over me started to deepen. It is like heading to the bottom an infinitely deep well, only upwards. Faced to this immensity As I slowly realized how insignificant I was, my humility seemed to have communicated to the air. It shrank away, thinned, and no longer able to move me. Particles felt like tiny grains of sand pecking on me with the same violence as before.

Then I saw the place of my birth, with rubber trees standing tall, and smiling workers busying amongst them. I smiled back, to the men, to the trees, to everything else. As I maintained my good mood, theirs were fading, until I couldn’t see their eyes or their faces or their bodies anymore. I felt asphyxiated by this disappearance, their indifference drowned me.

Warm light struck me out of my choking lethargy. I then felt lighter, as the rays filled me with its benevolent glare. I was growing out of my childhood. I was vitalized and electrified by the gleaming warmth, freed by my transformation. I felt complete beatitude and ecstasy. This was the happiest moment of my life, I recalled. The sun shone through my transparent body, making me as beautiful as a jewel.

Then the seed of doubt appeared inside me. I did not know what I worried about, but the anxiety was still ripping me apart. It started to be painful. The doubt bloated me. The sun’s metallic light stroke me like a thousand needles. The sky was pitch black, I couldn’t see beneath me. The pain is unbearable, lacerating, painful. My skin hurts, I am going to explode. I wish I could hear their voices again, but the tornado in me is filling my ears with bursts of tortured wails. I cannot see. I cannot feel. I am being devoured by myself, my guts, my soul. I have pain. Death is not coming soon enough.

POP.