A cartoon character printed onto a helium balloon had escaped from the bunch, and was wriggling its way up to freedom, the mesosphere, and death. Even though the cartoon’s painted-on smile was unchanging, its bugged-out eyes, molded parts of the balloon in their own right rather than a simple sticker, seemed to have a wild gleam of freedom within them.

It was free. It would perish in the freeing, of course, and leave a mess of mylar shrapnel as its toxic legacy. But it didn’t matter, not now, not yet. I wondered, as I watched, what it would be like to behold the unfolding view below through its balloon eyes.

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