Caught

There's a cluster of balloons caught in the wires overhead. Sunlight cuts sharp across the tops of buildings, turning one white stray almost translucent, where it nudges along the wire, feeling blindly for a way out and up.

Telephone workers are in the street, heads cranked back to look, hats pushed back. Equipment hangs heavy from their belts. The truck's cherrypicker is tucked in, door open, waiting for someone to climb in and free the balloons.

I stop - the sound of my footsteps catching up a second later - and look up with the men.

None of us wants to be the one to break the moment. We stand and look at the balloons, a handful of candy suspended in wire.

We watch. One by one, our thoughts separate and work themselves free, lifting up and into the cloudless sky.