CAPTURED BALLOONS
Copyright (c) by Rick Yost

I was shaken from my sleep. With a childlike excitement my friend Koug said, "Isaac, awake quickly, we've captured one of them, come see!” We were up and running before I could completely wake up. As we ran I brushed the red sand off my face and naked body from sleeping on the ground.
It was not yet morning and the temperature was still relatively comfortable; not the unbearable heat of the day. The tide was out on this small stretch of beach and the cool, wet sand felt refreshing to our bare feet.
With a broad, uncontrollable smile on her face, Koug became more excited as we approached our destination. She reached out and held my hand as we both ran naked through the warm surf. She was quite lovely in the early morning light with her long yellow hair flying as she ran.
We made our way past the jagged rocks and thirty-foot high cliffs that defined this part of our world. I could hear voices and commotion just around the bend ahead. As we circled around the last bit of large rocks to the other side, there it was. It was huge! Much larger than the one we'd caught before (the one that got away). Perfectly round, perfectly smooth and a beautiful light blue color; there it was floating in the air; a forty-foot balloon.
The others frantically secured the huge thing with every rope they had to every large rock and boulder they could reach; shouting directions to one another to coordinate their efforts. Koug and I stood at the entrance to the little cove watching the activity.
In nets and an upside down, basket cage made of tree limbs and vines, they securely anchored it to the large boulders that ringed the cove. It strained against the ropes to rise and free itself. It was magnificent!
At certain times of the season you could see thousands of balloons, high in the air, moving with the wind currents. They were beautiful and entrancing. They were a stark contrast against the red sky. Sometimes bunched together and other times scattered, they were at least something to watch in the cloudless sky. They’re always there, always floating and always being taken by the winds in the same direction, to the north. No one could say what they were or where they came from.
It was said that if a man could catch one and lash himself to it, that it would take him from this miserable, hot and desolate part of the world where you will surely die a slow parched death, to a wonderful, cold place, called the Ice Mountains.
During the day here when even the surf on the beach starts to steam up, it can be dangerous to be out in the bright sun. It is during this time of day that we all retreat to the caves of the cliff along the beach to wait for the sun to go down when we can safely come outside. It is during these times of waiting, when the Ice Mountains provide cool, distracting fantasy.
The balloons were something to busy our minds with. At certain times we found them hanging low in the air, especially close to the water. We watched and planned and gathered vines for ropes. Although usually so high in the sky, they were merely blue dots in the red sky, sometimes they would become close enough to touch. We were always ready to act if we saw one drop low enough to the ground to capture.
This low-hanging occurrence might have been due to barometric pressure; I'm not sure.
I've forgotten a great deal of my science. I have forgotten so much of my life before here. I don't even remember for sure how long I've been here with Koug and the fourteen others. The relentless heat of this place seems to have baked the memories from my brain.
When I crashed my ship here, I had to quickly learn things I’d never imagined. I had to learn quickly, the danger of the sun. I would have surely starved to death, had I not befriended Koug. She and her friends taught me to weave grass and vines into huge nets. They then showed me how to cast them into the air and catch the big birds we eat for food.
This morning was the start of a great day, the day we caught the balloon. Now we had a way of freeing ourselves from this prison of burning sun, red ground and hot surf. Now we could escape.
Beneath the balloon we will secure a basket large enough for two men and more nets. We will let the manned balloon rise as high as our tethering ropes would allow. Once high enough in the air we will capture another balloon, then another, then another. Soon we will have enough of them lashed together to easily carry the sixteen of us and necessary provisions. We will soon be flying north with the currents. In the streams of cool air that take all of the big, blue balloons, we will fly to the Ice Mountains.
Oh, what a marvelous thing, to be somewhere other than here. Like the others, I am so weary of being here! And when we reach the Ice Mountains, oh what a joyous cause for celebration there will be for us all.
The imagination makes one dizzy, thinking of what we might find. Will we find the cool, to be as pleasant as in our dreams? Will we find the tasty birds to be as plentiful as we require? Will we find others there like ourselves?
And if there are others there, will they greet us, teach us their ways, and become our new friends? Or will they simply be grateful for our captured balloons, so they can use them to escape from the cold?