It was an empty exercise. It was nothing at all.

I guess here would be the place to post excerpts. I wonder if I need to add any friends... Perhaps I'm only posting for myself right now- which I suppose would be okay too.





The Responsibility Of Balloons.



There was an old lady outside. I could see her from the wall sized window of the coffee shop. She look suspended in one of those massive electronic wheelchairs that implied a lot more than a broken leg. The only thing that was strange about such a sight was that she happened to be sitting in the center of the parking lot-alone-and it was raining-and she had 3 balloons tied to her handlebars-the ones someone else would be holding onto-if only there was someone else.


Where was everybody? Didn't they see this old woman?

She stuck out like a sore thumb with those balloons. What if it was her birthday?

How sad.

But-this is when I have to stop myself.

Say,

Hal, stop thinking of such worst case scenarios. Maybe this old woman liked the rain. Perhaps she found it refreshing- and those balloons-which I didn't make up-maybe those balloons were responsible for this old woman.



I didn't see her arrive. For all I knew she could have descended from the sky. Maybe there were more balloons at first-how would I know? Maybe she started off with many balloons, her and her massive chair, floating in the sky. Although no one would have noticed. No, they wouldn't, would they?-because today is such a crappy day-weather-wise, I mean.

And this old lady-once she finally found a suitable spacious spot on the ground may have stretched around and popped some of those balloons-just enough though-to have her sink slowly onto the cement of the lot.



Sometimes you have to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially if you don't know them from Eden. And in other cases if you feel the need to share something nice-even if it's just a nod of acknowledgement-well, then that's something you have to give to people too. Little things make big differences for people, even if it's between strangers.



Outside the rain was coming to a stop. I smiled, feeling content with my decision to remain seated in this coffee shop and just let the old woman do what she wanted to do. After all-who was I to stop her from her own personal happiness? Surely, I too could learn to enjoy the small things one day-even the rain.

But for now, it would be the yuppie coffee shop for me. The brew was expensive here, but hey, at least I was out of the rain.

Beside the old lady a white short bus pulled up. The woman that stepped out had short short blond hair and a sleeveless shirt- despite the rain- that exposed every tattoo on her arms.

She walked up behind the old lady and her chair, grabbed onto the handlebars and completely disregarded the three balloons.

From where I was seated, it didn't look like the old woman was saying anything to this woman. She wasn't telling her about the balloons or that she chose this spot intentionally- all on her own. She must have known-this woman in the chair-that this lady with the short blond hair wouldn't have understood her motives. She'd probably just call her crazy and disregard any explanation-just like she disregarded the balloons.

She pushed the old woman-with such force that I could see the tattoos bulge on both her arms. She pushed the chair onto a ramp. The ramp stuck out of the white bus- just like the ramps that you see stick out of spaceships- on an angle. Soon the old woman was on a platform, and it was lifting slowly. I tried to imagine that it was really the balloons lifting her- that she was really freeing herself from this "little-bus abduction". I wanted to root her on, to say, "you go, old Lady! Show that bus where you're really going!"

But, as I was in a coffee shop the encouragement didn't leave my lips-and the old woman-well, she was getting sucked into this white bus- she wasn't escaping like I thought she would.

The lady with the short blond hair and tattoos lifted the ramp behind the old woman.
In horror, I watched as one of the balloons lingered outside of the doorway-at the height of this ramp. Like any ignorant person the younger woman pushed the ramp shut and locked it anyway. The balloon lingered outside swaying back and forth violently with the wind as though it were trying to escape.

The lady stared at it for a moment and shrugged, then circled around to the front of the bus and stepped inside.

I wondered what the old woman thought of her balloon-of what the younger lady had done.

But just as soon as the bus had began to pull away another strange thing had happened. The right hand side of the bus-the one with the ramp and the trapped balloon-began to lift up- it lifted until the wheels were off of the ground, and then until the wheels on the left hand side were also suspended in the air.

The bus floated high-above all of the cars in the parking lot, staying somewhat on a slant-with the right side higher than the left. It ascended higher and higher-like a lone-free balloon- until all I could see was a dot in the sky.

I looked around, looked at all the people sipping their cups of expensive coffee-it was just coffee-but they didn't see what i saw. One man was staring intensely into a newspaper-as though deep within it he could see himself and the meaning of life. Two young girls were sitting in a table across from him-skinny and pre-pubescent looking-though they could easily have been as old as me. They sipped their hot drinks hesitantly-careful about their intake of each calorie, even though they were probably drinking unsweetened tea or black coffee.

A third table-one that was closer to me and the window-sat a mother and her son. The boy couldn't have been any older than five and he was looking-out the window up at the sky, like me-with wide brown eyes and a mouth hung open.

"Honey, drink your milk," his mother told him.

"But, Ma," he said, "didn't you see outside?"

"No, I didn't, Hun. It's raining. Just drink."

"There was a bus out there though, and balloons."

"Really?" She asked, faking it-her enthusiasm. She pushed the "tall" cup of milk towards the boy, although he was clearly uninterested in the liquid.

I looked over at the young boy until he caught my gaze. I smiled. His mother didn't notice. I pointed to the sky. The boy smiled and looked down at the table. He wasn't seeing things, that's all he needed to know.

I stood up and threw out my empty coffee cup. I zipped up my jacket and stopped myself from throwing on my hood. The rain was soft now-at a good point for me to start appreciating the small stuff.