The Lost Balloon

It was a few days before Christmas. The city was busier than usual; people charging around, searching for those perfect gifts to be placed under all those perfect trees. Everyone was on the hunt for that perfect bird for that perfect dinner table.

I’d just come out of hospital. I was three years old and my imperfect heart had been in need of some serious repair. On the way to the bus station, my mother had bought me a balloon from a street vendor. It was silver, had a huge picture of Santa Claus on the front and it danced on the end of a silver string. It was one of those balloons…a balloon that floats!! It was the first time I’d ever seen such a thing in my life. It was magical!
We’d reached the bus station earlier than we strictly needed to; the next bus home wasn’t for another hour. But I was so entranced with the idea my new floating balloon that none of that mattered. I wanted my new balloon…I wanted to play with it…I wanted to watch that source of magic and wonderment dance in the air above me. I wanted it now!
My mother had put the balloon into her bag; “For safe keeping, till we get home!”
But home was a five-hour bus journey away and I wanted to play with my balloon there and then; so I pestered and cajoled and pleaded and entreated and…eventually my mother relented in exasperation; defeated by the singlemindedness of a determined child. Is there a mother in the world who can withstand that?!

She reached into her large, voluminous bag and, amidst a torrent of rubbery squeaking and squawking, pulled out my balloon. It was iridescent! The splendour of its silvery beauty lit up my happy face; I could see the reflection of my own triumph on that silver surface.
My mother passed me my balloon. As she did so, my tiny grasp failed to gain the string first time and the balloon floated upwards. It rose, slowly…maddeningly, out of reach in one sinking, horrifying moment.
I stood there…numb, as the balloon; no longer my balloon: bumped and bobbed on the high ceiling of the bus station. It was still magical…still a source of magic and wonderment…as it danced in its silvery splendour in the cool winter breeze so impossibly high above my head. The silver string…that treacherous silver string!...floated behind it like the tail of a streaming comet.
It was still beautiful. But it was no longer mine.
It had never been mine. And it never would.

Then it was time to go. As my mother led me, by the hand, into the cold winter night and on to the waiting bus, I stole one last look back at the bus station, the impossibly high ceiling…and the lost balloon.

To this day, some thirty-five years later, whenever I pass through that same bus station…I always steal a glance at the now empty ceiling … and then I look quickly downwards…to hide a tear.