Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • masthead
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 21
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass fall 2020
    • interview with Porsha Olayiwola
    • new book reviews
    • new opinion editorials
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • fall 2020
    • spring 2020
    • fall 2019
    • spring 2019
    • fall 2018
    • spring 2018
    • fall 2017
    • apprentice 2017
    • spring 2017
    • fall 2016
    • spring 2016
    • fall 2015
    • spring 2015
    • fall 2014
    • spring 2014
    • spring 2012
    • winter 2012
    • fall 2011
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews >
      • Ed Briant
      • Eugene Cross
      • Josh Denslow
      • Christopher DeWan
      • Katherine Flannery Dering >
        • Aftermath
      • Eric Dyer
      • Julie Enszer >
        • Avowed
      • Mitchell Fink
      • Olivia Gatwood
      • David Gerrold
      • Cynthia Graham
      • Ernest Hilbert
      • Paul Lisicky >
        • The Roofers
      • Scott McCloud
      • Jan Millsapps
      • Anis Mojgani
      • Pedram Navab
      • Kelly Norris
      • Porsha Olayiwola
      • Michael Pagdon
      • Aimee Parkison >
        • The Petals of Your Eyes
      • Brad Parks
      • Chris Rakunas
      • Carlos Ramos
      • Mary Salvante
      • Jill Smolowe
      • Jayne Thompson
      • Julie Marie Wade
      • Melissa Wiley
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • photography
    • audio
    • video
    • new media
  • archive
    • read past issues
    • order print issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter

Why I Hate Balloons - by Kristin Laurel

6/1/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Yesterday, a five-year-old boy drowned in the lake when he was out duck hunting with his dad. I overheard the girls at work talking about the Catholic church, how there’s nice people over there handing out balloons to support the family.

When I get off work it’s late and nearly dark but sure enough when I pull into my small town, I see blue balloons tied to lamp-posts, mailboxes, tree branches, decks, and porch lights. It’s gotten cold tonight, it’s made the balloons shrink.  They look droopy and saggy; they’re barely hanging on to those pitiful strings.

I took care of a kid that choked and died from a balloon once. You better believe there were no balloons at my kid’s birthday parties.  There were balloons at my sister’s son’s funeral.  I don’t recall balloons at her first son’s funeral, but they were definitely at the second ones. She was in the car at the graveyard, and she wouldn’t get out. She kept crying, “I can’t do this again.”  Her husband and some of her friends were gathered around the car. One of the girls had a bundle of blue balloons in one arm and she was hugging my sister with her other arm. Everyone was crying, and I looked over to where all the people were standing by the graves and wondered, “Dear God, why does she have to do this again?” “Can’t we just take her home?”

Finally, she got out of that car, leaning on her husband, her friends and the girl carrying the blue balloons. I stood there with my three children, my partner and my ex-husband but I don’t remember what was said. I just stared at those damn balloons. After it was over, my sister’s friend handed out the blue balloons to the children and told them to let them go. 

The wind didn’t carry them very far. They made a popping sound like gunfire when they struck the tops of the trees inside the cemetery. I looked around, the little kids seemed disappointed, but nobody else showed any emotion.  It’s as if we were all so numb and half–dead anyway, we couldn’t get any more deflated. I overheard someone mumble, “It figures.” 

My sister shrugged her shoulders. 


Picture
Kristin Laurel completed a two-year apprenticeship in poetry at The Loft Literary Center (MPLS). Recent work can be seen in Gravel, CALYX, The Mainstreet Rag, r.kv.r.y, Apeiron Review, The Raleigh Review, The Mom Egg, The Doctor TJ Eckleburg Review and many others. Her first book, Giving Them All Away, won the Sinclair Poetry Prize from Evening Street Press (Dublin, Ohio). To read a free copy, go to http://eveningstreetpress.com/kristin-laurel-2011.html. Most recently, her CNF piece, Terminal Burrowing, won first place in the 2015 issue of The Talking Stick.  

2 Comments

    flash glass:
    a monthly publication of flash fiction, prose poetry, & micro essays
    


    Categories

    All
    Aficionado
    A Mermaid Dreams Of Shoes
    A Moment
    Anjali Pursai
    Ashley Kunsa
    Claire Day
    Daniel Riddle Rodriguez
    Displaced Person
    Ed McCafferty
    Flash Fiction
    Homecoming
    In The Absence Of Cats
    Kathleen McGookey
    Kathryn Hill
    Kristin Laurel
    Log House
    Micro Essay
    Morning-fog
    Morning-thought
    Motel-life
    Mother
    Prose Poetry
    Rob-hicks
    Tara Deal
    The Parable Of My Clocks
    The Rental
    Vivian Wagner
    Why I Hate Balloons


    Cover Image:
    "Bottled Light"
    Lori Blake | Issue 7


    RSS Feed

Picture

260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu

All Content on this Site
(C) 2021 glassworks
Photos used under Creative Commons from Rmonty119, Marcela McGreal, andreasw1966, BarnImages.com, D.Eickhoff, blondinrikard, Edna Winti, pcambraf, Du Žiedeliai { Vestuvinė floristika }, Glyn Lowe Photoworks.