Field guide No. 1382
The balloon that bent concrete
Light as air, heavy as a lorry
A white party balloon rests on a warehouse floor, sitting in a deep crater it has pressed into the cracked concrete. Whatever is inside, it is not helium.
Field noteBalloons float, yet this one sits in a crater it pressed into a warehouse floor, cracks spreading out.
- Specimen
- No. 1382
- Genus
- Generated
- Kind
- Impossible (the round square kind)
- Where it doesn’t exist
- a loading warehouse floor caved in around one balloon
- Nearest existing relative
- a bowling ball dropped in sand
- Filed in Fresh slop as
- Objects
Also impossible, also breaking material
Lizard swimming into plasterA lizard and its plaster impression merge on the wall. The house has become part of the animal.
Paper thin sheets, heavy shadowsSheets of paper cast shadows that drape off the table like heavy cloth.
Pigeon on a soft brick cushionBrick that sags like a cushion is not brick, whatever the mortar says.
Rainbow bubble trapped in quartzSoap bubbles last seconds and quartz lasts ages. Set into one boulder, they disagree about the time.