The Rust Maker (The Iron Balloon II)
By Tony Rauch
I’m on my way to the park, playing with my metal hoop and stick, making the hoop jump and wobble down the sandy road. I pass an old tilting barn and notice the owner, an older man, inside. He’s working on some strange metal ball. He has it up on saw horses and is filling this round metal cage with something from a mysterious gas can. I stop and watch. He waves at me from inside the dark shadow, then continues filling a container within the round metal cage. I wave back and keep walking, for he always seems to be in there fiddling with something, welding things, testing things, cooking up smelly liquids in a large metal pot over a fire and stinking up this area from time to time.
I’m in the park for a while, rolling my metal hoop down the grassy slopes when a strange shape appears in the distance. It is a round, smoky something hanging in the gray sky. It bobs in the wind, sort of floating along. It billows a dingy cloud of soot behind, like a dark banner fluttering in the wind.
The smoky shape slowly makes its way over to me. Smoke is emanating from the center of it as if from an internal engine, and causes quite a stink. The smoky floating balloon bobs in the breeze, drifting lower and lower. As it gets to about twenty feet from me, I run over to it. As I near I see a string dangling from the bottom of it. But as I run closer, I find the string is actually a metal chain, and that the balloon is an iron balloon - a pretty big one, about the size of a chair, chugging along and lumbering through the air like you’d think a metal balloon would. And then it strikes me, this looks like the metal ball that the old man was working on in his barn. Maybe he was filling it with fuel and then it got away from him.
The metal ball thing is puffing and coughing a thick, churning black exhaust. The trail of smoke swirls and curls in the breeze, fluttering like a long tail and wafting a strange stink, like pungent chemicals.
I reach and jump to try and grab the chain and pull it too me. Maybe I can keep it. I think my friends would be impressed. Maybe I can bring it to school. Maybe it runs on oil or something we have at home. Or maybe it’s lost and there’s a reward for finding and returning it to the older man in the barn. Maybe I can make some money off it. Maybe it’s broken, and that’s what’s causing the bad smoking stink.
I jump and leap and strive and finally grip the chain and try to tug it down out of the breeze. But it is heavier than it looks, and feels like it’s connected to a cable, even through there is no cable in the sky. I get a closer look at it - the balloon is just a metal frame with wire mesh over it and emanating a thick cloud of chugging exhaust. It is heavy. It pulls me off the ground as it rises and lowers and bobs in the wind. I let go and drop to the ground. The thing lumbers through the air, whipping its long tail of thick black smoke about. And then I feel myself slow down. I was going to try to jump and grab the chain, try to give it another good tug or thrash about to bring it down. Or maybe I could ride along with it for awhile to see where it would take me. But as I try to run I only get slower and slower. I feel myself stiffening. The balloon drops lower, lingering about five feet off the grass. A shadow appears on the ground under it. But it is overcast out, a cloudy gray fall haze in the sky, so there is no sun to cast a shadow. Then I slow to the point where I can barely move. My joints go stiff. The grass under the balloon is turning to rust - at first a dingy black of soot, and then an orange-ish tinge. I look myself over and watch as I turn a dark brown. I stiffen. I can’t move. I’m rusting in place. I blink my eyes, and move them around and around to try to keep them active and functioning. I look around and see a trail of filth on the ground. The tree next to me is rusting in place as well, and so is some on the horizon. The small iron balloon slowly dances and spews its toxic filth. The grass below is changing from green to yellow to brown. And then I see another dot on the horizon. It looks to be another iron balloon, bobbing along and spewing a smoky discharge. And then another appears, but this one is even further away. And then I spot another in the hazy distance, just a smudge of a fuzzy black dot in the sky, with a line of black trailing behind. And then yet another.
- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.
By Tony Rauch
I’m on my way to the park, playing with my metal hoop and stick, making the hoop jump and wobble down the sandy road. I pass an old tilting barn and notice the owner, an older man, inside. He’s working on some strange metal ball. He has it up on saw horses and is filling this round metal cage with something from a mysterious gas can. I stop and watch. He waves at me from inside the dark shadow, then continues filling a container within the round metal cage. I wave back and keep walking, for he always seems to be in there fiddling with something, welding things, testing things, cooking up smelly liquids in a large metal pot over a fire and stinking up this area from time to time.
I’m in the park for a while, rolling my metal hoop down the grassy slopes when a strange shape appears in the distance. It is a round, smoky something hanging in the gray sky. It bobs in the wind, sort of floating along. It billows a dingy cloud of soot behind, like a dark banner fluttering in the wind.
The smoky shape slowly makes its way over to me. Smoke is emanating from the center of it as if from an internal engine, and causes quite a stink. The smoky floating balloon bobs in the breeze, drifting lower and lower. As it gets to about twenty feet from me, I run over to it. As I near I see a string dangling from the bottom of it. But as I run closer, I find the string is actually a metal chain, and that the balloon is an iron balloon - a pretty big one, about the size of a chair, chugging along and lumbering through the air like you’d think a metal balloon would. And then it strikes me, this looks like the metal ball that the old man was working on in his barn. Maybe he was filling it with fuel and then it got away from him.
The metal ball thing is puffing and coughing a thick, churning black exhaust. The trail of smoke swirls and curls in the breeze, fluttering like a long tail and wafting a strange stink, like pungent chemicals.
I reach and jump to try and grab the chain and pull it too me. Maybe I can keep it. I think my friends would be impressed. Maybe I can bring it to school. Maybe it runs on oil or something we have at home. Or maybe it’s lost and there’s a reward for finding and returning it to the older man in the barn. Maybe I can make some money off it. Maybe it’s broken, and that’s what’s causing the bad smoking stink.
I jump and leap and strive and finally grip the chain and try to tug it down out of the breeze. But it is heavier than it looks, and feels like it’s connected to a cable, even through there is no cable in the sky. I get a closer look at it - the balloon is just a metal frame with wire mesh over it and emanating a thick cloud of chugging exhaust. It is heavy. It pulls me off the ground as it rises and lowers and bobs in the wind. I let go and drop to the ground. The thing lumbers through the air, whipping its long tail of thick black smoke about. And then I feel myself slow down. I was going to try to jump and grab the chain, try to give it another good tug or thrash about to bring it down. Or maybe I could ride along with it for awhile to see where it would take me. But as I try to run I only get slower and slower. I feel myself stiffening. The balloon drops lower, lingering about five feet off the grass. A shadow appears on the ground under it. But it is overcast out, a cloudy gray fall haze in the sky, so there is no sun to cast a shadow. Then I slow to the point where I can barely move. My joints go stiff. The grass under the balloon is turning to rust - at first a dingy black of soot, and then an orange-ish tinge. I look myself over and watch as I turn a dark brown. I stiffen. I can’t move. I’m rusting in place. I blink my eyes, and move them around and around to try to keep them active and functioning. I look around and see a trail of filth on the ground. The tree next to me is rusting in place as well, and so is some on the horizon. The small iron balloon slowly dances and spews its toxic filth. The grass below is changing from green to yellow to brown. And then I see another dot on the horizon. It looks to be another iron balloon, bobbing along and spewing a smoky discharge. And then another appears, but this one is even further away. And then I spot another in the hazy distance, just a smudge of a fuzzy black dot in the sky, with a line of black trailing behind. And then yet another.
- - -
Tony Rauch has three books of short stories published – “I’m right here” (spout press), “Laredo” (Eraserhead Press), “Eyeballs growing all over me . . . again” (Eraserhead Press). He has additional titles forthcoming in the next few months.
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