THE BALLOON SORTER

 

Something cool brewed in the thick gray clouds. Specks of dust swallowed in a liquid shell swelled with great weight until one by one each fell. And suddenly it began raining. Logan didn’t like the rain. It wasn’t the dampness but the sudden and radical change that turned everything over. The air pressure rose and dropped, the temperature cooled, the light receded, and all the sounds of nature were replaced with the static crash of an army of drops.  It was all too aggravating for a child of great structure, like Logan, who became overwhelmed by such change.

Like most rainy days, Logan stayed in and watched TV with his headphones on under his heavy blanket to ignore the blatant defiance of nature. But today was different. Today was Logan’s brother Lucas' birthday. All morning while Lucas was out, Logan had been setting up ribbons and banners to prepare for the evening of singing and eating cake . As hard as Logan tried his best to block out the rain, the promise and excitement of a birthday party was ever present in the corner of his eye, holding his focus where he didn’t want it. All Logan could think about was how the rain would ruin his older brother’s party. Frustrated, Logan began to chant “Rain rain go away, come again another day.”

The rain continued to tap the roof more loudly than before. Logan continued chanting, this time a little louder. “Rain rain go away, come again another day.”

The wind shook the house with playfulness, but Logan didn’t want to play. Instead his frustration grew ever stronger, loudly singing  “Rain rain go away, come again another day.”

It was then that a bold wind pushed in the door. Logan pulled off his headphones and yelled “GO AWAY RAIN!”

As he shouted, the bold wind took hold of the balloons and pulled them out into the open world. Lucas couldn’t come home to a party without balloons. Logan wanted to yell. He wanted to cry and break things. But most of all, he wanted to get those balloons back.

The boy rushed out the door and chased his brother’s balloons, grabbing hold of the group of strings before being lifted up into the clouds. His feet dangled above the rooftops as he ascended higher and higher, until all at once he stopped.

Somewhere beyond those thick gray clouds, above the rain, the balloons became caught in a net.  It wasn’t just Lucas’s birthday balloons either. Thousands of balloons had been taken up into the sky and held on the opposite side of the cloud. Each balloon was  unique and wonderful, with it’s own special color. Logan could hardly contain the rush of excitement at the sight of something so wonderful. He wanted to touch them and to find a place to keep them all.

Before he could even devise a plan, he began sorting the balloons. Diligently the bright boy worked, putting his favorite colors red and purple on the ends and green in the middle; making sure even the oranges, yellows, and blues had their place. Everything had it's place within the wonderful spectrum.  He continued to stack the balloons downward, creating a path back to the surface of the earth far below him. Balloon after balloon, stack after stack, the rows of colorful bodies bowed until finally reaching Logan’s home. The rain had all but settled, and the light gleamed off the mist suspended in the air. Logan looked up at his work and smiled with satisfaction that he created a rainbow for his older brother. It was truly something worth celebrating.