The red, sky dancing balloon - A Short Story

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...there lived a spunky little girl who could often be found running through the golden cornfield hills and dancing about with the purple butterflies. One bright and dewy morning, she decided to trek to the blueberry briers, for, she wanted to make a delicious blueberry breakfast cobbler.

As she was carefully plucking her blueberry treasures and placing them into her small woven basket, she caught a glimpse of a rather unusual sight...a red balloon swirling through the air, and ever so slowly descending towards her. Suspicious, she watched it swirl, swoosh, twirl – it was dancing beautifully for her, and she squealed and clapped with glee at the sight. Soon it floated so low, that the ribbon tied to the balloon gently brushed against her pink cheek...and though she anxiously tried to catch hold, it passed by peacefully and landed softly in the brush near her feet.

Still surprised at the unusual sight, she bent carefully to examine the balloon (spilling nearly half of her blueberries out of the basket). And as her eyes traced the balloon and the attached ribbon, she soon realized this balloon had taken a very, very long sky-journey. It laid at her feet tired, and drearily bobbiling about in the tall grass...far too drowsy to take flight ever again. In fact, its bright red color didn't seem too terribly bright as she looked closer either...it was faded from the sun and thickly worn with wander-scars. And still...as she inspected the sad state of the balloon, she admired it deeply. For, she pondered; the balloon had seen things she had never seen. It had passed by unknown places, places filled with beauty, wonder and curiosity. Had this balloon seen love? Had it seen sorrow? Whose stories had it witnessed? She desperately wanted to know.

She stooped a bit lower and stretched out her pale, blueberry-stained hand in attempts to welcome the balloon. However, just as her fingers were about to stroke the red, rubbery skin, something out of the corner of her eye caused her hand to retract with a surprised “snap” of the wrist. Could it be? No. It couldn't! But, wait...what if it was? She redirected her hand and reached slowly towards the object of question...the small tattered and yellowed-paper journal carefully tied to the end of the string. How did she not notice it before!? Would this journal whisper the journey secrets that the balloon held locked inside? Excited, she grabbed the tiny booklet and flipped it back and forth between her small palms. It was leather brown with an off-white flower embroidery that traced the outside cover edges. Simply beautiful. 

Her fingers began to tremble slightly as she tried to untangle the thick ribbon-knot which held the book imprisoned. After what seemed an eternity, the book sprang free from the knotted ribbon and fell softly into her lap. She ran her hand gently over the tattered book cover, took a deep breath, closed her eyes and slowly flipped the cover page open. A few seconds past and her blue eyes fluttered open cautiously. Slowly...the words that were sprawled across the page came into focus: 

TO BE CONTINUED :)