I’m a Perfectly Harmless Promotional Balloon

Just a buoyant globe of non-terrifying joy

Audrey Burges
The Belladonna Comedy
3 min readMay 28, 2020

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Photo by Hybrid on Unsplash

Welcome, innocent store visitor! I’m so glad to see you. I’m glad to see you the same way that an anglerfish is glad to see a clownfish who’s trying to find his lost son. Oh, sure, that was the scariest part of Finding Nemo, but don’t worry. I’m just a balloon! A harmless, free balloon.

Management knows that there are lots of places to get spackle and duct tape, but you chose this one. I’m a gesture of gratitude, and nothing more.

The guy holding me only sees you smiling, and nodding, and steering your child by the shoulder. But I see you inside, where you groan and gnash your teeth and realize it’s too late to escape me. Your fake smile is sweeter to me than the helium in that tank over there, but that’s not because I’m fueled by parental dread. That would be silly!

No, I’m fueled by the delight of children. Small, delicious children. Like your child: the one who’s reaching out for my curly ribbon right now. Did you know that he’s already named me? I’m Mr. Floatyhead. I have a balloon dog named Nibblepuppy and a rich interior life. I’m your kid’s new best friend. He won’t leave this store without me.

I know that you have things to do, and you planned to do those things without a balloon. Your plans must change. Your child will have a balloon. This means that your car will have a balloon. Then, your house will have a balloon.

Alas, your other children will not have balloons — not at first. But then, the cage match erupting between them will drive you to return, wild-haired and stumbling, to this very store. You will procure more of my brethren. We are legion, as we must be, because we are fragile. Like the ephemeral nature of joy.

We shall float like bright Chekov’s guns through the plot of your days. You will cringe and wince and wait for us to pop, and then you will crawl like a worm on the ground, retrieving our shrapnel, trying and failing to forestall a tantrum. There is only one cure for the tantrum. I know that you know.

More balloons.

Some of us won’t pop. Some of us will shrivel into rubbery husks that you try to throw away but keep finding on the floor, or tangled in…

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Author, THE MINISCULE MANSION OF MYRA MALONE (Berkley 2023); work in McSweeney’s, Belladonna, Slackjaw, & elsewhere. Twitter: @audrey_burges; audreyburges.com.