A Hot Air Balloon

Look at me, I’m flying!

I’m floating up into the sky. Higher and higher I go, above the rooftops and the trees! Up, up, up!


Can you see me? Tilt your head way, way back and look for the big, round nylon bag with a wicker basket dangling just below it. That’s me! Watch as I pirouette through the sky, defying gravity, flouting the will of the Creator, and making a mockery of His plan.

Behold, I am an affront to God!

I am a technicolor abomination. Mankind, in its insolence, spurned divine law to birth me from bolts of synthetic fabric and dye me colors far brighter than those found in His Creation. Then I was filled with fiery, hot air and sent right on up to the Heavens to spit in God’s face!


My existence is sinful. I am a perverse manifestation of human arrogance—a bulbous malformation whose unnatural harnessing of the wind has allowed man to lift himself high into the air where he doesn’t belong. My obscene gyrations as I soar over the Earth make God question why He ever created life upon its surface, let alone made beings in His own image. Gazing upon my grotesque contours, the angels claw at their eyes and weep until their voices grow hoarse.

Higher, higher, higher!

Each day, this insult is hurled once more at the Almighty, flung up toward His Eternal Kingdom. In the morning, a pilot lays out my deflated form in a grassy field and fills me with hot air as I strain against the ropes that tether me to the realm of mortals. Soon I will rise, though, like the Tower of Babel, carrying men to heights forbidden them by God.


Before we lift off, the pilot helps into my gondola two heathens wearing horrific grins and polo shirts tucked into belted shorts. Then we climb aloft, up and up and up into the firmament, past the point any God-fearing person would dare to reach. The shameless passengers “ooh” and “ah” as we glide through the air, sipping champagne and taking in the view of the Hudson Valley from a vantage point meant only for birds and angels.

Weeeeeeee!

This profane errand is repeated every 90 minutes until the sun sets and the last group of deviants is returned to land, safe and sound and heedless of the hellfire and eternal damnation that awaits them in the next world. For the Lord’s wrath will surely be visited upon us all!


Brrr! It’s cold up here so high in the sky. Which reminds me, I will never experience the warm embrace of God’s love!

Hee hee!

When I’m up here, sashaying through the puffy white clouds like some unrepentant rouge-lipped whore, I often think of how Icarus, his wings melting as he flew too close to the sun, plunged into the sea and drowned. As the blighted incarnation of man’s wicked disobedience, perhaps I too will have my fall—and maybe sooner than I think.


Uh-oh, I’m going down!

I’ve never made a descent this fast before. Something must be wrong. Oh no, the pilot is sweating a lot and pulling as hard as he can on the burner, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything! My goodness, the buildings are getting bigger and bigger! I can see people on the ground pointing and shouting!


Will I land on the soft grass below, or will I smash into the ground and continue ever downward to the depths of hell where I belong? I’ve spent this miserable, pointless existence hoisting the wretched humans skyward, and now, in my final moments, God will use me as a vessel to punish them for their debauchery and extravagance.

Oh boy, I’m going to rain down terror on the Hudson Valley! Burn, burn, burn! The ground is so close now. I’m almost there. So long, assholes!


Hurray! It’s time to die!