Member-only story
For Kim Taehyung
Walking to work always feels the same: lost time. Muscle memory takes over, and all you remember is leaving your apartment and arriving in front of the revolving door with still-scalding coffee in your hand.
But today something pulls you back from that realm of nothingness. You stop in the middle of the busy sidewalk, your feet willed to pause by that flash of purple in the sky. Eyes skyward, you follow the path of a tiny purple balloon, lazily dancing before reflective windows of a nondescript skyscraper.
You sip your coffee, and curse yourself when it burns away the feeling in your tongue. It’s just a balloon, you think. And you slip back into the netherworld without a thought.
A day goes by, and another. The weekend comes and you go to the park to read. It’s nothing fun, just some businessman memoir your boss highly “recommended.” As you sit on the bench, trying to trace the lines of the text, a child laughs. You see her nearby, tugging on her parent’s sleeve and pointing to the sky.
Another purple balloon.
Quickly, you return to your book, but in the back of your mind floats that balloon.
Monday comes again. You vaguely recall dreaming of purple. The color highlights your path to work, gleaming in the daytime lights of taxis and sleek, shiny SUVs, and glittering in the sunrise sky…
