The street is crowded. So many people they merge into a blur. Just a flow of shapes.

Save for the boy.

Small still. Only three, perhaps four. He’d be invisible among the mass if it wasn’t for the balloon.

A bright yellow thing, bobbing on a string. Trailing behind him in the crowd as his mother drags him on, pulling at his sleeve with impatient jerks. Never looking at him, never stopping to urge him on. She simply tugs at his free arm as they move through the crowd.

But the boy neither cares nor notices. He simply stares up at the balloon and smiles.

Then suddenly they stop. Their necks craned towards the sky, watching helplessly as the flash of yellow rises up between the buildings.

And briefly they are aware of one another, a tiny moment together, before she tugs again on his arm and rushes him on down the street, pushing hurriedly through the crowd.

The boy watches the balloon edge round the corner of a building and float out of sight.