Elysium

Balloons, the sight of those colorful bouncy ones always brings out a feeling of cheer and good spirits . The image of celebrations pops up on my mind. Just tie up balloons, blue, green, yellow, red ones and feel the spirits lift up. This was not the case when I was a small kid, I used to be frightened to hold a balloon. Wary that it might burst any minute and shock me, I preferred not to be around balloons.

So all grown up now, balloons seemingly too frivolous to scare me. When I saw balloons ,tied up on the chairs at a restaurant I couldn't stop myself from grabbing a yellow balloon on my way out, tying it up on my hand I brought it home and then busy with the routine chores, forgot all about the yellow balloon. Next day,as I sat with the newspaper, after the morning breakfast and packing off Sujith to work, I was surprised to notice the yellow balloon suspended in the air touching the roof, near the wall clock. It peered at me, and futilely was hitting the roof, wanting to reach greater heights. It looked as if it was fighting its destiny, relentlessly hammering the roof to bore it's way above. I put the newspaper down and began conversing with the balloon (don't frown, you all). After a while tired and realizing the pointlessness of its efforts,the balloon became a little less spirited. It came down feeling forlorn and sad. I was patiently waiting for it to come down, could have used the ladder but decided to wait for it to deflate a little. I was quite happy to hold it again.

I thought a while on what can be done with this balloon, then took it to the balcony,the sweltering heat brought out perspiration beads on my forehead, as I tied it on the grill and was delighted as it swayed in the breeze. I quickly retreated to the air conditioned haven  and continued to keep an eye on the balloon through the glass doors. For a while it was trying to escape the clutches of the grill, frantically trying to break free. The balloon ambitiously thinking of soaring up high and wild, to glide in the desert winds, playing games with the sun and trying to eclipse it. Alas, as time went by it resigned to it's fate and stopped the fight to escape, the dreams like an unrequited love.....the balloon was on the path to slow death.

I was watching all this in between my chores and was debating with myself, if I should have left the balloon in the restaurant, where it might have accompanied a sweet child holding on to it lovingly or a naughty one who would have burst it immediately, a free spirited soul might have let it soar free or it could have remained tied on to the chair, caged, without seeing the outside world. Maybe I should have set it fly free from the balcony and watched it till it became a speck in the vast blue sky.

Whatever, it would have definitely spared me the heartache, on seeing the sorry state of the once cheerful balloon lying lifeless....