After a full breakfast and a walk downtown in LA (GR though, don't get confused), we ended up at the fortress of the city, to have our katitis. The city is empty (we know where everyone has gone, don't rub it in our face), but we ate our souvlaki, dipped our potato in our tzatziki, you don't need a big company - or rather you can't have - when you have two small companions who they talk incessantly.
Mr. Balloon pops out of the corner, and as I imagine you have experienced it too - both as children and as parents - time stands still for a while, but it seems so long, everything stops for a moment. My daughter's head turns in slow motion exorcist-style (as if she smelled it), and my son with a potato in his mouth stares blankly, his eyes hazel balloons eager to meet their relatives..
Mr. Balloon walks slowly and excruciatingly, just enough to give my children time to get in touch with their consuming nature.
"Mom..."
Silence from me along with a sneer, which gives the green light to begin negotiations.
"Mummy, last time you promised me that..., Mummy, do you remember that you promised us that you would take us..."
The man with the balloons, having identified his original target group, is now in front of us and advertises his product. My children have their eyes wide open like a Japanese cartoon and are looking at me and at the balloons.
Anyway, without further ado, after hard negotiations with both sides (bargaining), we ended up getting one (1) balloon for both (2) at a discount (sorry, but 5 euros for one balloon I DON'T give) .
We paraded it around the fort, tied it to one arm, then untied it from the first arm and put it on the second arm as it launched an attack on the first arm, took our pictures, let it rest, and strapped it to the cart. Hold tight, don't let go, our metallic blue dolphin.
We finished the food, ate ice cream, paid, and made our way back. Strolling through the empty city, a small supermarket, with the little dolphin romping through its aisles and carelessly frolicking over the shelves. We pay, the stroller is used for shopping and we take it home on foot. The little dolphin is happy, swimming in the thick August air.
Fifty meters before the house and as we walk, we see on the left a kitten sunbathing for five (5) seconds. I look ahead and see the dolphin quickly escaping. I leave the stroller on the sidewalk and in a philologist voice (you know) ask the little ones to stay THERE while I run to grab the elusive ones. The dolphin is stuck on a high branch in front of an apartment building. I back up to see if anyone is on the balcony with access to the branch in question but alas, all closed. I make a change and turn to see my children, who are looking at me with mute pain, as if they have been fasting for 15 days and just realized that they will not eat, not even today.
And a beautiful cry begins from both of them, so shaking that it reverberates in the alley. Stop the few passers-by - really, why do passers-by always appear when you're in an awkward phase on the road? – and they look at me ready to call the providence, and I, avoiding the eyes, start pushing the stroller slowly, epitaph of a great Friday, with the little ones accompanying crying.
I advance them a little further (50, 49, 48 meters...), the roar gets bigger.
"My dears, our little dolphin thought it was a bird, he saw the little tree and said to go and sit there, don't be sad..."
'Oooooh… Go jump and catch it mommy'
"Baby, the branch is on the third floor, and if I jump, I can't catch it" (38, 37, 36)
“Oooooh…Tell him to get off mommy”
"He's not coming down baby, he doesn't want to, the little birds want to be free..." (28, 27, 26 meters)
"No mom, let's go get it, canaries live in a house..."
"My dears, even the canaries, if you asked them, would rather be on twigs than in cages. But the dolphin thinks that it is a bird, but in reality it is a mischievous balloon that…”
I have said EVERYTHING you can imagine to calm them down. The dog across the street started barking from crying, in the apartment building I don't know what they think of me anymore...
When we finally got into the apartment and crying they took off their shoes, washed their hands while sobbing and then sat in the kitchen to rest and drink some water (so many tears somehow need to be replenished).
Asks the older woman, who thought about the matter thoroughly and had already found the solution and therefore, she had calmed down (the little one continued his silent death by pissing off a green dinosaur).
"Mommy, was the dolphin naughty?"
"Yes baby"
"Mom, next time we find Mr. Balloon, let's tell him to give us a less naughty balloon, okay?"
"Yes baby"
Anyway, finally, I got them and they were forgotten, a little game, an impromptu musical dance performance and some yogurt with spoonfuls on top.
They were not completely forgotten, of course. In the evening, before going to bed they went out on the balcony and said good night to our metallic blue fugitive.
I DON'T WANT these balloons, I have childhood trauma I tell you. Saint Velissarios 257 years ago, October 28th, my parents got me one too. And where I went to show my catwalk in the square and show it to everyone, it makes an air fsst, and the bow is untied from my hand and I sit with tears in my eyes, to say goodbye to the sky the balloon-Alexandria that just I had lost.
I don't remember being taken from me again (due to an earlier dishonest life). I don't remember asking again.
If you've read this far, because I know I've tired you out, thank you. So where I want to end up, because it's going slowly, beyond the triviality of the case, is that I feel their pain, and what it symbolizes even more. To fight for something, to get it, and whoops, it slips through your hands. If you had never held it in your hands, it wouldn't be the same.
And so, somehow, paradoxically, you get a Freudian, Cavafian melancholy, in the evening, with a finished amaretto on the veranda and the battery on the laptop is slowly dying.
*Cover photo: From the movie "The Red Balloon". 1956. France. Directed by Albert Lamorisse. Photo: Edmond Sechan
