Between work and KATG P!SP! week, I won’t have much time to update. So all you get is a micro-fiction (a story under 1,000 words) story I wrote today. If it sucks, then fuck me, I guess, right?

99 Red Balloons – Nena

Here it is:

Ten Thousand Red Ballooons

When I had found the ten thousand red balloons I came to the conclusion that it was a sign from God. Being an atheist I think it’s fair to assume that I wanted to believe more than I actually did, although the people around this town wouldn’t think twice about questioning my bullshit.

But when you really think about it, this thing they call fate must exist because if Henry Kensington’s daughter wasn’t such a bitch, and had to have more balloons at her Hell on Earth themed sweet sixteen than Poppy Reese, all of those balloons wouldn’t have even gotten here from the Party City flagship store in the first place.

And if Caleb French hadn’t stolen them, tied them to his bike and tried to fly away by peddling off the overpass on Church Street—I mean we all knew he wasn’t right and of course it’s a tragedy—but what a dumb fuck.

I had just given birth and I didn’t want this kid and I could give you good reasons as to why I don’t want it, but they’re all clichés: asshole dad, no money, too young, blah, blah, blah, etc.

After the three-day hospital stay I still hadn’t named her. One time, our neighbor Rosemary Santos, she gives my mom a bag of live crabs to cook us up. My mom boils all these crabs, but as they’re boiling she starts watching them, she gives them names, Ben, Giuseppe, Cheese Burger, Mimi, Delores, Han Solo…

They’re all cooked up and ready to go, except she can’t eat them now because they’ve gotten too close, she chucks them in the garbage. The next day Rosemary asks how were the crabs, mom says, “They were delicious.” She told me the story when I asked her why she ate them all by herself. Maybe she was lying—maybe she just wanted to eat like a fat ass that day, but there’s something about naming something—I don’t want to do it.

I saw Caleb French pop a wheelie over that overpass thinking he’d finally be free of whatever—I don’t know—of his semi-retarded sister, of his date rapist brother, of that rabid pit-bull that would run around biting kids at the playground. All that bullshit gone and he would just float away, weightless into the atmosphere, which would ideally lead to some other sans-bullshit-heavenly-world.

Instead he fell, like a dumb ass. When he was peddling beside my 1998 used Honda Civic I’m sure that if I had bothered to look I’d have been able to see the hope in his eyes. There was a shriek and a crash. There was no traffic. When I made the turn onto the road down below, I saw him lying there, I am not a scientist but it looked like he landed directly on his skull.

Gravity hadn’t made such a compelling argument since the time Daniel pushed me out of a moving golf cart. It was six months ago, the golf cart was stolen and we cut school and drove around the mall parking lot. I said I was pregnant, he said “No you’re not, Kate,” he shoved me, I hit the pavement, he drove off, I hurt my funny bone, and here we are now.

So when I saw the blood pouring out of Caleb French’s head like a raspberry-filled Cadbury Egg I called 911 because I am not an asshole. When I saw those ten thousand red balloons, I saw an opportunity. They were tied to the handlebars and back basket in bunches. I took out a pair of scissors from the glove compartment. Snipping and gnawing at the thousands of strings, I took as many as I could. The sound of the ambulance was approaching… how many would I need?

I just kept wrapping the strings around, so tight it hurt, hands, shoulders, ankles, some of the balloons got away. When I started to feel this pull, I knew it was time, the buoyancy of liberation. I could see my baby floating away, too young, too dumb, unaware, faintly crying in the distance, until she became this tiny red glob, almost like a lunar eclipse in the daytime.

If I had to, I think I’d name her “Albatross.”

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