Handprints

She passes by with her mother, another mother and her two small children. Little girl stops at a string of balloons, several balloons tied onto a length of string between two trees. Outside the art studio, an attractive eye-level advertisement. They're tie-dye, white balloons and rainbow paint, but the paint is on the inside. How'd they do that?

Seven rubbery rainbow orbs across this length of string and the middle one is starting to fade. It is not doing well. It has lost its air. Little girl is drawn to it. She takes it in her small hands and gives it the slightest of squeezes. Splashes of blue and red bulge and seem to smile at her. Hello to you, too!

Removes her hands, smile fades. But her handprints remain. Some new life is given to this balloon. It looks bigger than before, it grew where her hands once were. It is oddly beautiful and somewhat grotesque. It looks forgotten, and it is her favorite.

Her mother, the other mother, the other children, they are gone. They are down the sidewalk, turned some corner. They cannot see this. Or her. Or anything. Little girl looks at her balloon and thinks about paint and rainbows and parties and art and beauty and life and doesn't realize it. She traces each handprint over and over with her littlest finger. She looks at the splotches of paint. She wonders how, how, how they got in there.