Red Balloons | Teen Ink

Red Balloons

March 8, 2023
By Anonymous

I had this amazing magical bunch of balloons once and every time I went somewhere new a balloon would pop. I knew that if I wanted to make it back home I would have to save just one for getting back. But forget that, first I was going to have some fun. I first decided that I wanted to travel back in time so I found the juicest red one of the bunch and decided that this one was it. I whispered something to it and with a flash I was gone. I went back to the time when war was afoot amoung the eastern part of the land and dicovered what the meaning of this sort of lifestyle was like. Then my red balloon popped. I picked another one and it took me to the future where there was nothing but endless space and no planet Earth. I couldn’t stay for long though because there was no air and everything was so incredibly cold. So as my balloon popped the next one took me somewhere new. Back a couple years in time from now when we were racing Russia to launch someone to the moon. And I met this amazing woman who deserved so much more in the space program, so I gave her the balloons and kept one to return home. Feeling happier than ever. That amazing person I soon found out five years later had become a hero for many people and said that I was the only one who made it possible. I decided to help her cause of starvation and hunger in Africa by going to visit her and tell her it was me. I decided to take some red balloons with me even if they weren’t magical. I found her on a mission to save the African population a couple years back with one of her last balloons. I walked up to her passing through the massive crowd of people begging and pleading with her to use her balloons to buy them puppies or stop them from getting in a car crash. But I knew she never would, she was dedicated to a cause, and so was I. I told her that I was the one who gave her the balloons and I want her to let me join her in saving so many endangered lives. But she didn’t want anything to do with me, she wanted to continue her mission alone. This puzzled me, and I begged and pleaded, and then she finally said this one thing that changed my entire life. “I will not ever let you join me, I see great opportunity in you, but do you? Pursue what you want to pursue and not what others want you to pursue or what you think will make you look good for others.” This quote changed the way I saw myself and others and I went on to pursue my dream of becoming an aerospace engineer. And building a rocket ship to Mars.


The author's comments:

This just feels like a really meaningful piece that relates to me so much and I feel like this is almost like a story from my life. 


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