Red heart balloons.

On a recent Sunday afternoon walk I took a picture of a cluster of red heart-shaped balloons tied around the black bars of an iron fence. The light is dwindling and the shadows across the dead grass are growing ever-longer. But the light that remains is the more brilliant for that, rendering the patches of grass not dead a deep emerald. I set the image as my cellphone backdrop. Those hearts speak to me: the way they, though fettered, bobbled buoyantly in the air; the way their frail being could be summarily eradicated with the prick of a malicious pin; the way they served as a bright, shining beacon on a dreary Sunday. I haven’t passed that fence since. The balloons have probably been removed or deflated. I’d rather not know. I’d rather remember them as they were in this moment. I’d rather remember how I was in this moment.