Cold air against my face, handlebars in my hands, and I was mildly regretting the route. The goal was an errand. Completed, the only thing left to do was go home.

There’s two roads that run parallel, with a creek in between. My errand was on the western side, so the western road I took home. The eastern road has bike lanes, a parking lane, and space. The western one is narrow with speedbumps, barely a shoulder on the northbound side. I forgot this. Well, I was there now. So I rode, unnervingly close to the fence that keeps you from falling down the concrete shore into the creek.

I wasn’t going very fast. The creek is not much to look at, unless you’re a connoisseur of civil engineering projects that sap the life out of ecosystems. Life can happen somewhere else, they must have thought, creating a space for brownish gray water that at best reflects the sky. Sometimes it freezes and the ice chunks rise higher than the bridge. In some springs, during the thaw, the water sneaks into the neighbors’ basements despite everyone’s efforts to prevent otherwise. A late night deep dive into historic newspaper told me that this has been happening for over 100 years.

I look over, and in the creek I see two colored balls. Pale green and light blue, bouncing on brown water. When I arrive to the bridge, I stop and lift my bicycle onto the sidewalk. I look over.

They are balloons. Gravity pulled them into the creek, and the wind was blowing them against the current. Each created a small wake from the opposite forces of nature.

I’m accustomed to the signs of deteriorating environment, crumbling institutions, and unwellness. I’m not used to whimsical pollution.

There’s a beach in England where Legos wash up, twenty eight years after a container ship was hit by an errant wave. It’s pollution. It’s cute, or it would be in the situation it was intended for: Christmas gifts opened by eager children, spreading out the pieces on the kitchen table, as they opened the directions. Instead, now they break apart releasing chemicals into the ocean.

Were these balloons the casualty of loose hands a couple days before? Did a small child stare at their escape with equivalent disappointment that I stare at them with now? Were they released on purpose? I know people who do that. Everyone really shouldn’t do that.

Did these balloons travel together until the helium escaped, separating in the water? The concrete banks of this creek are fenced off. I cannot get down there to fish them out, pop them, and send them to the fate discarded things are supposed to have. Or rather, the fate our society decided they should have, which is as unsustainable as everything else we do.

People who have similar values that I do have long felt a sorrow of living in a society that makes harming choices. It has long felt dissonant to be part of a society whose comforts require the suffering of others, deteriorates the environment, and creates a future with more pollution than the present. I feel frustrated that we could be better, but haven’t convinced those in power, each other, and ourselves to change.

I suppose someone not as tired as me would see something like beauty and whim in the balloons in the water. Instead, colorful dread bobbed on the waves. I lifted my bike off the sidewalk and rode home.