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http://redclaydiary.com/
or read his story below:
AN INSTANCE OF HYPNOTIC METAL BALLOONS
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Beneath the lifeless flat white glow of high-ceilinged flourescent tubes, a little girl is all alone inside the peopled store. To her, there is no-one else around. That’s because she is staring solely and wide-eyed at a display of metallic-hued helium-bloated balloons above her, balloons that wave to and fro, fro and to, in the dry conditioned air.
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Her mouth agape in wonder, her head tilts upward. She marvels at the magically floating shapes and leaps a few inches, extending her arms to their limits, attempting mightily to grow tall enough to embrace and befriend the teasing lighter-than-air entities.
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Her uninhibited laughter is all but ignored by clerks and shoppers who, after all, have more important and less joyful tasks to accomplish. Why would anyone pause to upward-gaze and relax just enough for a quick and painless injection of laughter?
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Those who, here and there, do notice the childplay going on in plain view can’t help but grin and flash back to times when everything in life happened for the first time, every experience was new, every wonder was…well, wonderful.
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Will the little girl retain this first-time memory in old age? Will she reach into her happy file in order to re-experience, re-remember, this special moment? Will the few Noticers in the store grin to themselves on the way home, reliving the most important moment of this day, the most important moments of their very own long-ago’s?
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“Price check on aisle three!” an oblivious employee calls out.
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And the day ticks forward
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© Jim Reed 2018 A.D.