Flying High

A girl has in her hand a red balloon, which magically lifts her far up into the sky. She soars over the earth, transported by the balloon – over sparkling blue waters with schools of fish jumping, over dense forest canopies, beautiful as a living, breathing green tapestry, over ice-capped mountain ranges shimmering with crystalline reflections. And now there are herds of frolicking gazelles below, which delight her. Then, a childrens’ playground, swarming and buzzing with small bodies bouncing merrily around and squeals of contagious laughter, which works its way into her heart and erupts throughout her body and throat with wave after wave of giggles crescendoing to tearful, gasping snorts of mirth. Here, though, a beautiful pasture now besieged by scores, no, hundreds of bodies all with weaponized fury and rage, blasting and hacking away at each other, with shrieks of agony, exertion, madness, fear, triumph all like a terrible storm rising from the field now drenched with blood and death. With heart aching and eyes weeping, the balloon carries her over a dancing stream, where there are two lovers, one on bended knee, one shaking with passionate excitement. Now warmth and joy and remembering being loved coming from deep within her spreads blankets her. In time, the red balloon descends and places her gently on the ground. As if appearing from a fog, each and every character and body she observed on her journey was there – whole, shiny, radiating peaceful joy. With dawning awareness, she thanked them.