The Elephant’s Balloon
An exploration of truth, freedom, capitalism, and love in a broken America
The elephant went to the park with his new red balloon.
The balloon was round and light. It did not look like the elephant, who was grey and heavy. But the elephant liked the balloon for everything that he was not: he mused upon whether he perceived the balloon through an pachidermal lens, fetishizing that which he understood as alien to his own form and truth. Perhaps his relationship with the balloon was not that of equitable friendship, but that of power and silent aggression, enforced by the privilege of his size and strength. These were difficult aspects for baby elephant to confront as he walked to the park with the balloon, but nonetheless, a narrative that was vital to explore in his elephantness.
The balloon moved up, and down, and side, to side. It bopped north, and south, and east, and west. The elephant enjoyed watching the balloon dance in a vermillion brilliance against an austere sky. But ultimately, he came to experience thoughts of whether his grey gaze as an auteur was inherently exploitative at the balloon’s habitation of space.
The elephant sat down in the park. Mommy Elephant asked him if he wanted an ice cream. He said yes, excited by the thought of a momentary saccharine distraction from a decaying city where millions wandered like ants through the capitalist carcass of a forgotten dream. But the euphoria slipped to guilt, marred by the exploitation that he had funded through the passive demand of ice cream from a woman he loved. Her emotional labor was being exploited, and with it the hands of countless others in a consumerist western webs of lies and deceit, all to grant him that tragedy of a temporary panacea; a single soda pop. As he wept at his greed, he let go of the balloon. It flew up and up.
His mom came back, and saw that her son the elephant was sad. “Why are you sad, baby elephant?” said his mom, performing yet more emotional labor ignored by the heteromasculine elite. “I am sad because the balloon is gone,” explained the elephant. He could not vocalize the depths of his grief, for now all that had created joy in the numb monotony of pachidermal suburbia was that red balloon, lost forever to the abyss of cloud. Could he ever experience joy again? Could he love as he had once loved? Was the guilt of having let it go when usurped by the consumerist forces of greed ever to leave his wandering mind? Was he doomed to experience a world without the colour and movement it had so inspired in him?
“You have the memories of the balloon,” said Mommy Elephant. “Those cannot float away.” Indeed, memory was inherently socialist in nature. It could not be bought, nor traded, nor sold, merely the experiences of the individual in a society where no one and everyone is the same. He would cling to the moments of the balloon in the darkness of his world, absorbing what had brought him joy and challenging pachidermal typicality through its memory.
The balloon had moved up and down, and side, to side, it had bopped north, and south, and east, and west, and he would never let that story be forgotten by the pachidermy. That story, becoming the surviving memory of what had been, was all that remained of the balloon experience, one left in his trunk alone to give. The elephant was happy and looked up at the sky.
“Truly I now understand that to experience happiness, we cannot attempt capitalist ownership over that which we love without heartbreak,” he whispered, walking with Mommy Elephant through the city where the streets weaved with people who all believed themselves to be free from the narratives and control of an pachidermal elitist, heartless state.
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This is a satire of children’s books that get incredibly smug with themselves about allegedly fixing racism or sexism. I do not believe America is run by a bunch of dictatorial elephants.
