bright pieces

A pink balloon bobbed between the cars in front of me. A bit of white streamer danced along the pavement. I wondered where they had come from. Then I saw it: a truck and trailer were covered in streamers and balloons which fluttered merrily in the breeze. I drove behind it for awhile, wondering where the pink and white spectacle was going. At a stop light I pulled up beside it. The balloons and streamers went limp for a few seconds. They quickly rose to life again when the light turned green and the truck pulled forward. It was its own parade: cheerful, proclaiming some special occasion in a way that had to make passerbys smile. Even when they were clueless like me as to the reason for the celebration.


I imagined standing behind a trailer filled to overflowing with balloons and streamers of every color. I would give the signal and the trailer would pull forward. The streamers and balloons would shoot towards me and suddenly I would be surrounded in a cloud of color. The streamers would criss-cross over my shoulders and around my feet. The balloons would swirl around me. Then in a moment they would lift off into the sky, a bright mosaic that would eventually scatter once more into dozens of individual pieces.