Six months and six days ago the humans of Philadelphia woke up to find a violet balloon, big enough and flexible enough, to wedge itself comfortably between City Hall and the Comcast building, situated in that location. There was a discontinuity between the way the balloon looked and the way it behaved. While it had the appearance of a turgid balloon at an office farewell party, any amount of pressure applied to the balloon caused it to deform almost infinitely, spilling into adjacent streets and neighborhoods. This misalignment with mental models was just the tip of the iceberg. Beyond its remarkable material properties, the balloon pulsated, emitting eerie, muffled noises, resembling people talking under water.

Something this outlandish triggered so many questions and concerns.

How did the balloon get here?
What was inside?
Was it trying to communicate?

It was not unusual for people within a certain distance of the balloon to suddenly find themselves in its shadow or on top of it, with little recollection as to how they got there. In close proximity people felt a spark of something - not energy, not happiness - but a kind of raison d’etre.

These questions took up a higher than average percent of mental real estate, putting the humans of Philadelphia in a tizzy. Each evening they fell into a deep, well deserved slumber, after the brain exercises of the day. People felt entitled to an explanation from the universe and, at any rate, this kind of thing had to mean something. Leading researchers and experts flew in from around the world to run assessments and make proclamations:

There are traces of Mars in its chemical composition!
It’s the product of Darwinian fitness...it’s a new species!
There’s a black hole inside!
It’s portal to an alternate reality!
It’s a messenger from another planet. They need our help!

In the first few days animals, wild and domestic, were drawn to the balloon in a trancelike reverence. Even dogs who barked at everything wouldn’t bark at the balloon. Within a certain radius of the balloon, animals became catatonic and strained their ears to listen. When everyone was finished poking and prodding the balloon, it was settled, the humans of Philadelphia would have to find a way to coexist with the balloon. Six months later the balloon left their lives the same way it entered, inexplicably and unanticipated. But life in wake of the balloon was not the same. There was, of course, a physical void, but there was also an emotional one. It was difficult for most people to pinpoint whether this emptiness was new or had always been there, and the absence of the balloon simply highlighted it.

Where the balloon was caught between City Hall, Macy’s and the Ritz-Carlton, the tension gave rise to a series of unusual peaks and valleys, making it a skateboard mecca. The balloon’s un-engineered topography meandered, twisted, looped and arched in ways inconceivable to any architect. The security of the balloon’s bounciness gave skaters the confidence to do tricks they would never attempt in a concrete skatepark. Deep allowed the contours of the land lead his body. When he pushed his weight down, the balloon responded with an equal and opposite force, propelling him upward, giving him the requisite height to pull off moves he couldn’t on Earth’s surface. Then there was that moment in the air when everything was perfectly aligned and Deep was a happy boy. In the aftermath, this moment made him anxious because he had no way of knowing that he would ever be that happy again, especially now that the balloon was gone. For several years Deep would find himself knee deep in this memory without any recollection of how he arrived.

Indu gave Kallol a perfunctory kiss, grabbed her thermal mug and bounded down the porch steps. She was insecure about her date with Sung tonight because before tonight all of their dates took place on the balloon.

“Meet me at tomorrow at six thirty right where the balloon dips over the JFK Plaza.”

At 6:15 Indu stuffed her heels and other loose articles into a backpack, cracked the window open, held the zipline securely with both hands and jumped off the window’s precipice. The sun was well past its zenith, exposing the balloon’s relief with its orange hues. The balloon was like a large boulder caught in level five rapids, changing the city’s landscape but doing little to deter the humans of Philadelphia from prospering. They built new economies on and around the balloon, including a sleep center which used the balloon’s pulse to help people sleep and an outdoor gymnasium which advertised a new flavor of resistance training. Except for the rare, unpredictable moments when the absurdity of the balloon would hit her like a train, Indu, like most people, had normalized the balloon.

On their first date they slid down the steepest part of the balloon into its deepest valley. Because walking up straight like responsible adults was almost impossible they did funny walks and bounced around like children. They argued over whether inflatable castles were called a bouncy castles or moonbounces and took turns popcorning each other. They became different versions of themselves. The balloon invited Indu to play, motivating her to move because of tenuous, soon-forgotten goals. When was the last time she chased someone? Was she 13? Maybe 14? Geez, children stop being children so early. They would end these sessions lying side by side, holding hands, abdomens to the sky. Physically the affair never went any further, but in every other way it succeeded in being as intimate as your average affair. Sometimes they would talk but often they would just lie and feel every vibration that passed through. She felt what he felt, and they both felt what everyone else on the balloon felt. The balloon’s consistent pulse synchronized everyone’s heartbeat with its own. Its underwater murmuring contained the same frequencies as an Om, signifying what was, what is and what will be.

"Bye Mom! Bye Kallol!” The door hit its frame with full force on Pallavi’s way out.

All she could think about was the old man. The last time she saw him, his face was pressed into the underside of the balloon. He relied on his right cheek and the muscles in his neck to produce a semi-transparent dimple on the balloon’s surface. From the neck down he could have been in another dimension, his limp body playing by other rules. Most days he would sit and pay homage to the balloon, but sometimes he would use unusual methods to investigate the balloon. Once, he was so involved in his own gymnastics with the balloon that he nearly clocked a small boy over the head with his foot. While Pallavi didn’t necessarily think there was anything wrong with what he was doing, she decided not to tell anyone about the old man. Now with the balloon missing, she wondered where he was, whether he had family, and if so, did they love him? She had grown to care about a complete stranger.

When the balloon appeared the humans of Philadelphia couldn’t imagine a future with the balloon but when it was gone, they couldn’t imagine a life without it. The balloon gave the urban fabric of Philadelphia the unique opportunity to embody the elasticity of human memory, engulfing and expelling the balloon with equal gusto. Man and balloon became a single breathing entity, filling and emptying its lungs in a consistent rhythm. Over time it became less obvious that the balloon was regulating people, instead of the other way around. People tried to give the balloon a place in their world but because the balloon did not play by the rules of the reality in which it suddenly appeared, people had to accept that some things could not be explained.