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Balloon Parade by Fernando and Diego
It’s noon. Robert and Jessica are ready to get on the helicopter for their 12:30 pm news show. Today they are recording the Giant Balloons Parade from the sky. It’s a sunny, beautiful day and all the news are good news, there have been no robberies, no kidnappings, no shootings, no natural disasters, nothing. The worst report is that the city’s baseball team had lost their game. Robert feels happy and in peace and is eager to appreciate the view of those balloons. “What a wonderful day” -he says. “Yeah, it actually is a pretty good day”-replies Jessica. “For me it isn’t”- says the pilot, who joins the conversation from around the chopper. “I had some bad seafood yesterday and my stomach appears to be angry at me” -the pilot explains. They don’t say anything and hop on the white whirly-bird.
“Good afternoon Garlic City!! What a beautiful day” -starts the news anchorman from the studio.
He presents the first news and introduces Robert and Jessica. “Let´s go up to the sky with them” -he says. Jessica starts talking about the about-to-start parade and describes the different balloons she saw. Robert then complements the report with his wiseful facts. After some minutes, they go off air and Robert asks the pilot to overfly the parade a little while. “Andrew, let’s go for a ride” - said Robert. He doesn’t receive any answer. “Andrew?” -he asks again. Still no answer. Curious, he goes to the cabin and founds the pilot unconscious in his own vomit. Robert, not wanting to scare Jessica, turns on the automatic pilot and pretends to be calm. After a while, he realizes they are going directly to the balloons. Scared, he loses control and shouts. “Jessica… DO YOU KNOW HOW TO FLY THE DAMN HELICOPTER?!”. They are both freaking out. Jessica, resigned, starts praying. This is when Robert realizes that he has to do something about it. The adrenaline kicks in, he goes looking for the parachutes… just two of them in the box. He’s so mad and so scared that he doesn’t think it clearly. He gives a parachute to Jessica without saying there were only two of them. “I’ve always loved you” -Robert confess as he throws Jessica out of the chopper. Still with the adrenaline at the fullest, and a small heroic feeling, he puts the other parachute to the pilot and ejects him out. Just three seconds after, he realizes of the stupidity of his actions, he now is in an uncontrollable helicopter, with no parachute for himself.
He needed a plan. If he jumped, he had few probabilities of surviving, and the chopper would finally fall and kill many innocent citizens. He got an idea. He could give it a try to redirect the helicopter to fall directly to the lake, and in that way he could target a balloon to cushion his fall. He change the direction, made a little prayer, closed his eyes and jumped, targeting the Snoopy balloon. After that he knew nothing. He wakes up in the hospital, with a broken arm and a bandage in his head. He was alone. He had a fuzzy vision, he could just recognize the shape of a balloon and a box of chocolates. There was a card. He reaches for the card and read it. Jessica, and a heart signed it.
