The old woman lived alone in an apartment.

Her apartment had seedy green walls, on every table a vase filled with an individual flower, almost artificially healthy. Everything was spotless; The television positioned perfectly opposite her couch. Everything was silent, a work of art she fed with a lifetime.

In her apartment, the old woman sat alone in her bedroom, a seedy green bedroom that contained a closet, a mirror, a bed, a table supporting a random arrangement of medication. The room was silent, devoid of detail, but alive. It had taken her a lifetime to sprout. A small radio gave music. The music went unheard.

Floating in her bedroom was a blue balloon. A neighbourhood child had given the balloon to the sky, but she had caught it just in time, just in time to quell a terrible, unreasoning fear that she still could not place, and she had brought it back to her bedroom.

The old woman's face was lost. Her eyes had long been greedily sapped of all the hope they had once housed. Her mouth was now shapeless, the words it formed immaterial. Under her flowery dress, her obesity was such that it withered her. Her hair was well-groomed into curls.

She stared silently at the balloon as it bopped minutely against the ceiling.

The old woman slaved the rest of her day to her home, and then slept. The next morning, the balloon had regressed, no longer touching the ceiling; It levitated pathetically off the floor. The old woman, feasting on this sight, rose again, fed herself to her home, and that night she dreamed, for the first time in twenty nine years, ever since her son left her.