In the sky, the balloon was an absence, a black hole.

His hands shook and the glasses tumbled on the card table.  They gave a trembling cry:  "Be brave and finish up."  "Stomp your feet and howl, but don't be heard."  "Calm your heart rate and settle into the rhythm: loss, found, empty, satisfied, raging, quiet--switching on and off.  Finding the vase then a face, a void then a wholeness."

He stood, turned a switch, dug his feet into the dirt.  Then, his body suddenly launched into the space where clouds crystalized and oxygen thinned.   "I wonder," he said, "if anyone'll see me..."

The couple saw from the balloon.  A man lit up and burned like a rocket on the horizon.  A snap and a small rustling and the lights went out.

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