At The End Of The Parade

And at the end of the parade everyone stood together in the center of the street. Each circlet of individuals, each clique unaware just what they were connecting to, every person was simply just in the moment despite everything in their lives, their genetics, what might lie within their hearts.

Everyone held balloons in their hands, and the children worried what would become of them when they floated out of sight. White lies were whispered to them as the wind picked up some to drown out the hypocrisy maybe, just this one time, for them.

Grown men tripped on used Styrofoam plates still glossed with the leavings of overly sugary cake and innocently spilled punch as they tried to write down their families wishes whilst trying to concentrate on one of their own. Do they have one? They will wonder this with a gripping dread inside of them right before the answer comes.

There were balloons of every color, and the youngest of the children collected the ones that had popped from their possible obscurity in the leaves of the garden for they were in love simply with the colors, and the magic of the mystery of the treasured magical material in their hands.

Everything smelled sweet as the snacks baked in the sun with the roses, the lavender, and the fresh cut grass.

One man wrote a special message to his God. He didn't want his wife to see it, and he'd bend into the corner pretending to just have trouble balancing his pen.

A strange woman walked in at the end of the parade holding a candle, obviously, crossing the street from her house just to participate in this, and she scrawled reckless pleas onto cheap paper with black sharpie for him to just come back alive. She didn't care if he had his mind or not anymore, she just hoped for his life. Whatever that was going to be.

The smiling man with the guitar next to the crooked tree, feeling bittersweet after a day spent singing to the next generation to come, he wrote simply: Peace.

The children, well they wrote about all sorts of things... ranging from toys to stopping the destruction of the things that tear their parents apart from the inside out... for the Children knew both the balance of Extreme - Selfishness and Extreme- Unselfishness.

The Atheists wrote with cynical smirks, "Show Me Proof." or "This Is Pointless" as The Theists wrote in either: "Hear Me?" or "I Believe."

The sky was faded blue like a pair of jeans washed one too many times, and clear enough for the event. It was spring in Southern California after all.

The adults feared the young ones would see some of them pop, and that it would ruin the magic for them, not understanding... that when it came down to it, the mystery of the Balloons wasn't the important lesson here.

Queue the music, and on the count of three...
Dreams would be carried away by delicate rubber and would descend at once into the sky, and everyone would try to keep their eye on theirs for as long as they could until all the balloons began to blur and come together. The ones who hesitated, will always in the end decide to let go of that one tiny piece of themselves, even if it was just to feel apart of something for once.

One
Two
Three

When the the balloons were released everything was suddenly so quiet you could believe for one moment everyone at once had held their breath without even realizing it.

As much as what was written, the differences in print, the long winded to the simplicity of singular words... everyone simply watched, and the only words that could seem to still be read from the ground were some scribbled names and:

Love, Peace, Belief, and Proof.

One balloon, however, it's tag clearly looked like it read the word Mistake, and I could only see the beauty in the reality of that sentiment. Especially since my Balloon had said in all it's Orange glory: Forgiveness.

I always secretly wished even in adulthood, that I'd find out if balloons ever reached out and made it to anyone from events like the old Parade finale. Perhaps, maybe some surprised hikers in the mountains would run into it like it was some kind of a strange Chinese fortune cookie, or maybe one would fall in the outdoor walkways of a college creating something of a small crowd of confused people wanting to see this strange invasion on their everyday normalcy.

I always wondered if those scrawled on balloons ever really got anywhere with their tags still attached, for it always just looked like they went like lemmings into the sun to die.

Where did they fall?

One afternoon, at the age of 24... I walked outside my dirty filthy backyard starving. I saw a deflated Yellow Balloon, and it's tag read Hope, and I smiled a crooked smile... and I brought it inside trying to imagine the hands that scrawled it.

And for a little while... I did.
I hoped.