It all started with beer of course. The idea to tie helium balloons to a lawn chair and float over the neighborhood. He thought about doing it to his best friend-slash-nemesis whom he secretly hated, but why not show everyone once and for all. He strapped himself into his own destiny without resistance.
There was enough beer flowing at the party to make it all happen in minutes. Without a jerk, he elevated. His buddies burst into wild guffaws and he knew they were rolling their bellies in the lawn though he couldn’t see them. Already 10 meters high, he knew he’d roll over if he looked down.
Then he found himself laughing alone. He couldn’t hear his friends anymore and he suspected his familiar world had already collapsed into a google map. There was no wind because he was moving at the same speed. In fact, it was silent and silent enough to suddenly make him terrified.
Up and up and up. He broke out into a sweat in the way one does when the dentist drill comes close. The sun was glowing through the balloons and he could imagine god assessing his life. He had no reason to go to purgatory. He was faithful to his wife, he had kids, a dog, a car. He had just bought a new set of power tools. He suddenly became intensely nostalgic of his simple honest life. He wanted to go back.
Then he realized it wasn’t all over. He had scissors. He was prepared. He wasn’t that stupid. All he had to do was cut the string and he’d be back home in minutes. He friends would cheer and he’d be a celebrity. “Man flies in a lawn chair.” Simple. No sweat.
When the string was between the scissor blades, it started to vibrate like an umbilical cords. He couldn’t cut it. He became confused as to what life he was trying to save and what life he was yearning for.
First he heard the voice of his wife nagging him. “Why don’t you listen to me? I told you to take out the garbage.” Then his boss telling him he’d be fired if he dared to make another mistake. What mistake? Whose garbage? It wasn’t that he was disgusted with those voices or wanted to escape. It was just that he realized that they were far below him and way out of hearing distance. It didn’t seem to matter anymore. He felt no anger, no yearning, no discontent. He felt elevated.
It must have been the sun and the thinning air. He was giddy and light-headed. The blue of the sky had turned to an inky intensity and the clouds were crystalline. It wasn’t just the balloon cord vibrating. The entire sky was vibrating and in an astonishingly and harmonious way.
Then the image of the clouds began to peel like wallpaper. It was quiet like a movie set without action. In a clean cesarean cut, the photofinish surface of the world he knew unzipped and in that instant, he knew what his life had been printed on. He started to laugh with a joyous gurgle and his lawn chair picked up speed. He had nothing to steer with, but it zeroed in on the Kodak finish, photoglossy surface, straight to the slit that was opening wider to accommodate his lawn chair and then he sailed straight through to the other side.
What a foolish man. Darwin would have shook his head. Darwin spent all that energy and time to put the world into scientific order. Why would someone not cut the string?
