Strangers Rescue a Birthday Balloon from a Tall Oak Tree

The Runaway Balloon"

Some things are only small if they're not happening to you.

A golden number 5 caught in an oak tree isn't a big problem. Unless you're five, and it's your birthday, and you just watched the best thing you own float away from you into a sky that doesn't give anything back.

Then it's the whole world.

That's what the strangers understood without discussing it. Nobody said it's just a balloon.

And a little girl walked back to her party with the string wrapped twice around her wrist, holding on tight to something that had almost been gone forever.