Glowing Balloons

A man stirs in his sleep, covered in layers of faded, plaid blankets to shield him from the cold air. Slowly, he opens his eyes, feeling the fatigue of oversleeping creeping up onto his back. He rolls to his side in his blankets, and using his arm, lifts his heavy body from the bed.

He looks around. His room is just enough to squeeze in a full-sized bed and a dresser. The walls are painted white besides the single brick wall behind the bed – and the slight chip near the two-paneled door across the bed. He knows it’s always been there. This is his bedroom in his house, no doubt, but despite how familiar everything feels—despite the instincts and routine that drives him to move his limbs and walk out of bed—something doesn’t feel quite right. What had he been doing the day before? What had he been doing the past week, past month, past year?

He couldn’t remember.

His toes feel cold on the icy floorboards. Tentatively, he walks towards the fog-covered window.

He wipes the glass with his sleeve. A thin, white crystal of snow floats down, down, past the window, past him, and onto the busy street below. He is high up, maybe about four stories, judging by the distance—in an apartment—a part of him knows, in front of a road lined with traffic. People are out and about, and the trees, lampposts, and brick buildings are all decked with lights and candy canes. However, looking at the beautiful street down below only fills him with the familiar feeling of spite. The feeling makes him turn away from the colorful street back to his dull room, the alarm clock on his dresser ticking, forgotten.

The man walks out of his bedroom and into the bathroom. The bathroom is a tight rectangle, where the shower, toilet, and sink almost touch each other. An old, bristled toothbrush sits in an even older cup in front of the mirror. In the mirror, there is him. The person he was supposed to remember being.

His hair is parted and messy, and he’s got a few strands of gray. He looks like any unrecognizable face in the streets. However, one thing stands out. From the corners of his eyes to the middle of his cheeks stretch very, very dark creases. His eyes are enveloped in a few layers of bags. He looks terribly harrowed and tired, and he wonders what had made such dark creases appear on his face.

Outside of the bathroom lies the rest of his house. The living room has one sad, beige couch and a bookshelf full of sophisticated titles about science and philosophy. And yet the books lay scattered, falling on top of each other without grace. Several diplomas and awards crookedly hang above the wall behind the couch. On the kitchen counter lay many unopened letters and checks dated years ago, a faded will buried underneath them. A calendar hangs beside the counter. It's flipped to December, and left completely blank. Nothing but numbers and boxes.

That is it. There’s no Christmas tree, or lights, or photos of other people. Only the specks of dust floating in the air accompanying him. The letters are addressed to him by people, it seems. But he doesn’t want to open them. The books on the shelf, he doesn’t want to read anymore. The college diploma, he wants to forget about.

What a dull, boring life he’s been living, he thinks. And yet a part of him claims this is the best life for someone like him. He should stay like this, barely hanging on like that crooked diploma. But it wasn’t—he was sure of it—if the dark creases and bags under his eyes said anything about it.

And yet he would spend another day, and yet another day, here. Among the dust, among the sagging couch cushions, among all of his sorrows.

But why would he? Nothing is stopping him from walking out the door. Nothing. And it felt freeing.

He steadily walked back to his bedroom with firm determination. He threw on a bland shirt and jeans he found in his dresser, and then a brown coat hanging near the front door. The front door. With six panels instead of two, it stood in front of him, imposingly and intimidatingly. A familiar feeling told him it was stupid to twist the doorknob, stupid to open the door and walk over to the elevator, that it was absolutely absurd to brace the cold winter air and walk the crowded streets full of equally absurd people. But he went on with resolve, because ‘him’ in the present knew that it was better for both sides of himself.

The sky outside was falling into dusk. The clouds were purplish-gray, snowflakes falling like tiny white wisps. His breath formed transparent clouds in the air. Despite the setting sun, cars still lined the road and restaurants were packed. The Christmas craze is at its peak today. He hears some old women talking about the Christmas Eve church service at the local church. God is dead, a voice in his head scoffs. A group of friends are wishing each other Happy Christmas Eve. He frowns. A shallow gesture only meant to keep face. He doesn’t listen to those thoughts, and instead continues to walk without any direction, hoping his legs would take him somewhere on their own.

As he walks, he notices a choir singing a Christmas carol, and store speakers playing jingle bells. Christmas lights light up the city falling into night, making the snowflakes glow. It’s a joyous occasion, but he only finds his mouth dropping into a frown again. People, having fun, people laughing, are all hypocrites. And he refused to be a hypocrite. He remembered it was the one principle he’d sworn to follow, the one commandment that dictated all of his existence. It was the source of his spite, his bitterness. But it was this twisted satisfaction that he was somehow better than others—who were simply enjoying life—that justified his miserable existence.

It was then he saw something glowing in the distance. It was too colorful to be any Christmas light, and there were lots of them, clumped together in one spot. As he came closer, he saw what they were: Glowing balloons!

His old self was not very fascinated by the idea of “glowing balloons”. But his new self, the one who’d forgotten the pride of being “better”, was ecstatic at the idea of balloons, full of lights, that glowed in the darkness.

He waited in line as a boy in front of him was handed a balloon. He smiled, giggled, and ran around with it, so pleased by a single balloon stuffed with some LED lights and put on a plastic stick.

Joy is just the product of others’ suffering. The mantra was the wariness that seeped into every crease of his wrinkled face. He couldn’t laugh, couldn’t take joy for what it was, because it was always held down by a plastic stick. A stick that was shoved up somewhere, mind you, because there was nothing grand or elegant about his ego, his swelling pride that he was different, and that by definition he was better than others.

Because in the end, all it is is a balloon stuffed with LED lights. And perhaps there wasn’t anything magical about it, he thought, handing over some crinkled dollar bills in exchange for a balloon.

Maybe everybody in the world was selfish, and happiness was a lie, and in the end everything can be bought with money, or any of the other devastating maybe-truths of reality were true, if you really thought about it.

But why bother? The man thought, as he walked down the street with his new glowing balloon. Happy, giggling, like the little boy, he once was, and wearing a smile on his face he hadn’t worn in years.

In the city of Christmas Eve, the man thought: how does it matter what the truth was? Right now, in the present, there is him, the glowing balloon, and the joyous melody of the streets.

Perhaps, it’s best to let it go—just for this moment.