Pink and Blue Balloons, or the Tale of the Vacuuphant

By Balloonie-cat Inflated

This story is © Balloony-cat Inflated (AKA Lord Balloony-cat Inflated) as of 5/17/2005. All rights are reserved, but you can repost this wherever you like as long as my name is on it, you are not selling it, and you haven’t changed the content in any way.

This story is dedicated to Belly Demon.

Warning: may cause drowsiness or muscle cramps. A small percentage of readers experienced an uncontrollable urge to break-dance.

Enough mumbo-jumbo, on with the show:

Once upon a time, in a forest far away, there lived a bunch of pink and blue balloons. They were all shaped like fat little people, except they had animal heads. Some were tigers, and some were lions, and some were bears or rabbits or foxes, but all were pudgy and generally round.

Every morning, at sun rise, the balloons would wake up very soft and sleepy, and they would yawn loudly. Then they would drink the air (for that is what they drank, except for helium on special occasions), taking in gulp after gulp. As they drank, they would get taller, and wider, and thicker, filling until they could move about.

Once they were full enough to move and think and talk easily, they would spend some time eating cakes and cookies and breads and rolls, all of which were made of two things: air, to make them as fat as could be, and rubber sap to help them grow larger and stronger over time.

Every night, at sunset, they would all gather together in the sleeping place. Then they would take turns telling jokes and tickling one another. The fact is, if you tickle a balloon, or make him laugh very heartily, he will start to let out his air, no matter how hard he tries to hold it in. Of course, balloons found losing air to be very funny and ticklish, so once they started, they rarely stopped until all fell flat and fast asleep.

Between eating breakfast and laughing to sleep, they roamed about and had great fun. They giggled, they bounced, they jumped up in the air, or out of tall trees, to see themselves drift down. Sometimes, they would let out air and drink up water until they were great heavy sloshing things, especially on hot days, and at night, they would bounce up and down very hard until they went BOOM and let all the water out.

The next day, they would be just as before, but by then, it would most likely be cooler, so there would be no water drinking. Sometimes, on cool days, the young ones would play “Who Is the Biggest”. They would take great gulps of air in…and they would get fatter…and fatter…and fatter…until everyone but one gave up and let out their air, or one of them swallowed too much and went BOOM. If that happened, all the balloons would laugh, and the little ones’ game would usually change to “Who Can BOOM the Loudest”. The next day, they would be good as new, and probably try it again.

Every year, the balloons got bigger, and fatter, and older, and wiser. In the spring, the bigger blue balloons would start to get unusually fat in the belly, whether they wanted it or not, and the pink balloons would giggle whenever they passed close. When the time was right, the fat blue balloons would gather in a circle, into which the pink balloons would step. Then they would smile at the blues and open their mouths, letting all their air rush out and making them fly every which way.

Meanwhile, below, the blues would move all over, trying to catch their favorite pink as she drifted down, deflated. Whichever one they caught would be their wife, and they would kiss her, and blow their air into her. The blues would shrink…and shrink…and shrink…and the pinks would get fatter…and fatter…and fatter, until they went BOOM, and one, or two, or sometimes three or four little pink and blue balloons would fly out of them, and every one would laugh and go to blow the new balloons up.

Whenever a balloon went BOOM, they would be good as new the next day, with one exception: every winter, the young balloons would feast the oldest, fattest, biggest, wisest balloons on their favorite airy foods, until they could hold no more. Then they would go BOOM much louder than ever before. Everyone around would get a little older, wiser, bigger, and fatter, and the burst balloons would not be seen until the blues made the pinks go BOOM in the spring, and the olds came forth as news.

Then one day, a terrible thing happened to all the pinks and all the blues: the Vacuuphant came to the woods. The Vacuuphant, for the uneducated, is a round grey ball with four stumpy legs, rather like a very fat elephant, except it has no mouth, and mean little eyes, and a vacuum hose for a trunk. When it first came, the balloons tried to welcome it, being of the friendly sort.

The Vacuuphant whirred an angry, hungry whir. It flapped its great ears, and it pointed its vacuum trunk at a pink balloon who was giggling by the brook. There was another whir, and a great sucking sound, and the Vacuuphant began to get fatter…and fatter…and fatter. Meanwhile, while the balloons looked on in shock, the little pink stopped laughing and began to look very sad…and she got smaller…and smaller…and smaller, until she slumped and went flat. The Vacuuphant, now very fat, whirred a laughing whir, and the pink did not reinflate for three days.

Then the time of sadness began. The Vacuuphant roamed the forest, and the balloons found they had no time to eat their huge breakfasts, or play their silly games. They barely had time for their morning drink of air before the Vacuuphant would leap forth and suck until one or more of them slumped into an unhappy sleep. Winter came, but no one feasted the olds to bursting. Spring came, and the blues got fat, but that just made the Vacuuphant greedier, and it would suck them flat before they could find wives or make news.

Things were getting worse and worse, for the Vacuuphant grew larger as it feed, and greedier too. Then, one day in spring, the fifth spring in which no one had grown any older, wiser, bigger, or fatter, the Vacuuphant feasted so richly that it nearly burst, and could hardly move, and while it was sleeping this off, the balloons hatched a plan.

The next day, though still quite fat and tight, the Vacuuphant awoke and went in search of prey. Nothing big today, it thought, just a little one to top me off. It whirred happily at this, and as it walked, a pink and a very fat blue jumped right out in front of it. Before it could do anything, the blue seized its vacuum trunk, put it to his lips, and blew his air into it, making it fatter…and fatter…and fatter. When the blue went flat, his wife took over, blowing her air into the trunk, until she too was flat. To the Vacuuphant’s dismay, several more blues and pinks appeared, and began to approach it. For the first time in its long, fat, mean life, it wanted to run, but it was far to bloated to move its little legs, and they didn’t touch the ground any more anyway.

One by one, the balloons blew all their air into the Vacuuphant, and to its horror, it got fatter…and fatter…and fatter…and tighter…and tighter…and tighter. It whirred its angry whirr and waved its stumpy little feet, but it was much, much too big to move now. It was so big, and so full, that its skin was turning clear, and it was so tight and so fat, its body was starting to creak with strain. Desperately, it tried to yank its trunk away from the latest deflating balloon, but she just went up with it, hanging on until she had given it all she had to give. Balloon after balloon came, and the Vacuuphant got bigger…and tighter…and fatter…until finally, it gave up with a tremendous BOOM!

It did not come back the next day, when everyone drank helium until they could hardly stay on the ground. It was still missing in the winter, when the olds were finally feasted until they burst to give everyone another year of everything. Nor did it come back the next spring, when the blues burst the pinks to make the news. In fact, it was never seen or heard from EVER again…and the pink and blue balloons couldn’t have been happier.

=^_^=

Questions? Comments? Email balloonycat@yahoo.com …do it NOW *brandishes the pin* ;)