Daily story, January 8, 2025

When he was five he lost his birthday balloon. The knot on the weight slipped, and it drifted up over their street. He thought it would disappear into the clouds, but it didn’t: it hung in the still air all afternoon, as he remembered it. That night, his mum told him a story about all the adventures his balloon had been on, and how everything it saw as it flew meant something wonderful that would happen that year. In truth, it came down a few miles away and a cow choked to death on it. That, it turned out, really was an omen of the year to come.