The Pride Balloon

A story for Pride Month! 

Some selfish anonymous man has been passing himself off as an "originality inspector" in order to  steal ideas from numerous people, including Voo, Seria, and Balloonie, every day of Pride Month, all just to obtain huge profits. The three of them decide to combine their ideas to teach him a lesson. 

“I’VE HAD IT UP TO HERE!!!!!”

Seria and Balloonie both jump up when they hear a woman screaming angrily right next to their ears. They turn towards the direction they heard it from only to see Voo, on her knees, grinding her teeth in anger. They both run over to her to see what’s up.

“Hey, you’re the creator of those Voo-You Balloons, right?”, Seria asks. “What’s the problem?”

“Ever since June 1st, I’ve been having to deal with the same thing!”, Voo yells. “A man constantly keeps taking away my ideas of new Voodoo Magic, telling me to just swallow my pride and come up with something original! He keeps saying he has the right to do that because he’s an ‘originality inspector’.”

“‘Originality Inspector’? You mean you get judged by a man human to see if you’re copying other humans’ works?”, asks Balloonie.

“Exactly!”, Voo replies. “Now I’m struggling to find a new idea nobody has ever taken yet. At this rate, I’ll go crazy!!”

Seria gets an idea. “Maybe I can show you a thing or two in my lab. Hopefully that would be enough to help.”

So Seria and Balloonie take Voo back to the Wacky Laboratory with them, but only to find…

“EVERYTHING’S ALL GONE!!!”, Seria yells.

“Yes, including all of the alien projects I’ve been trying to remake from scratch!”, Balloonie adds. “Hey, someone left a note.” She picks it up.

In violation of lack of originality in your projects, this entire laboratory is now official property of Pridway Corp. If you want it back, BE USEFUL AND COME UP WITH SOMETHING ORIGINAL!!!

“Well, that is just rude,” Balloonie says. “What could possibly be more original than not-from-this-world technology?!” She turns toward Seria and Voo. “So what do we do now?”

“Looks like we’ll have to rely on the world’s biggest resource,” Seria says, “the internet.” She pulls out a tablet from inside her lab coat. “Any time we get an idea, we’ll have tー Whoops!” She accidentally opens up the news app. Then the newsman speaks.

“Breaking News! It has been revealed that Pridway Corp is a one-man SCAM!! Be on the lookout for a selfish man who has been passing himself off as an originality inspector in order to gain access to laboratories and obtain what he likes to call ‘free stuff’. That’s all for now.”

A brief moment of silence fills the room before Voo and Seria break it out of nowhere.

“FREEEEE SSSTTTUUUUUFFFFF?!?!?!?”

“Maybe we should warn that man human who came by about that evil faker,” Balloonie says, looking back at the letter.

“YOU LOONEY LUMOX!!! He IS the faker!!!!”, Seria yells at her. “We’ve been fooled! Had! Played like broken fiddles!”

“I’ll bet he just wants to get a hold of our stuff just so he can make a profit of his own,” Voo suspects. “This cannot go unpunished.”

“Agreed!” Seria says. “If that chump wants an original idea that badly, then by Newton’s 2nd we’ll GIVE HIM ONE!”

“We?”

“Yeah, you heard right! It’s three against one, and I say we merge our ideas!”

“But I make balloons, you make elixirs and stuff like that, and your alien friend makes alien things! Just HOW do you propose we merge all that?!”

“I may have an idea,” Balloonie interjects.

The Following Week

“Hello, everybody!”, the anonymous man announces. “Today marks the grand opening of Pridway Corp, where we take pride in our work our way. Take for example, our 100% original Balloon Fuser, great for fusing balloons of different colors. Or our very own Pride Balloon, where you have to rub all over yourself to have it inflate.”

It is a Balloon Fuser, all right…a VOO-YOU Balloon Fuser, or as it’s originally called, the Voo-You Mixer. And that Pride Balloon is the result of fusing all those said balloons. The girls told him to make sure he rubs it on himself before he inflates it, but the man is completely unaware of what would happen if he does. The girls didn’t expect to end up having a parade balloon sized weather balloon, though, but big products mean big results.

“Come on down to your local central park right now and get a gander of how we make our very own original artwork at prices you won’t believe. More original than any other DUMB SCIENTIST could ever make ‘em!”

Word quickly gets around, and a mob of angry scientists quickly rush over to the park, along with a few witchdoctors, technologists, several police officers, and some other bystanders. They find the man in the midst of setting up a pump powerful enough to inflate the Pride Balloon. He had made sure to rub himself all over the balloon before doing so.

“Welcome to Pridway Corp! Be sure to bid before you touch!”

“Bid?! Yeah, right!”, one of the scientists say. “Give us back our stuff! You’re obviously no ‘dumb scientist’ yourself!”

A bystander picks up a product to get a closer look at the price to bid. “Holy cow, you’re right!”, they say, noticing it’s a million dollars. “I don’t believe these prices!”

“HEY! Aren’t you going to BID first?!”, the man snaps.

“Bid schmid!”, says an officer. “We’re placing you under arrest for fraud, theft, and false advertising.”

“Me? Under arrest? It’s people like them that deserve to be blamed.” The man points at Voo, Seria, and Balloonie, who just so happen to be in the crowd. “Pridway Corp takes complete pride in creating original ideas on their OWN. These three were mainly INSPIRED by life to make troublemaking products nobody knows how to handle. Even though it’s simple instructions, they’re a menace to our society! This nowhere near counts as original!” He points to Voo and Seria. “Hey, blonde and long hair! Make yourself originally useful and inflate this balloon for me!”

“With pleasure,” Voo and Seria both mutter mischievously.

“I cannot wait to see the look on that evil man human’s face,” Balloonie giggles.

“You have no evidence that inspiration doesn’t count as originality,” says another scientist, “and frankly, who cares?! As long as they aren’t INTENTIONALLY STEALING IT altogether.”

“Besides, you can’t just directly blame the creators for convincing people to buy products that may or may not turn out to be too wacky for them to handle,” says a technologist.

“Yeah, just because nobody bothers to read instruction manuals anymore, don’t just take it out on them,” says a witchdoctor.

“Nonsense. Nonsense! You’re all accusing me of stealing untested authorized items without any idea on how to use them?” The man laughs. “Honestly, just WHERE is the proof in that? I’m a completely innocent byー”

He notices something is happening to him the moment before he could finish talking. Every part of his body is turning into multiple colors, and he starts feeling tingly all over.

“You people may want to stand back,” Voo warns everyone.

The Pride Balloon begins to work its magic. First, the man’s head starts to blimp up. He slaps his hands on his cheeks to feel it grow and grow until it can be seen from the top of the mountains. Just when it feels like it’s about to pop, the man’s head shrinks back down to size, but the air moves down to his chest, almost choking him in the process. Then his belly follows the same pattern.

“What’s happening to me?!”, the man shouts. “What did you girls do?!?”

“Don’t look at us,” Seria replies. “We’re just filling up this GIANT giant balloon like you asked.” She already made sure to tape the balloon to the pump thoroughly so it wouldn’t go anywhere.

The air then moves down from his belly to his butt. Then the air forces him to take the form of a hot dog, then a giant light bulb, then a perfectly round ball. During this process, he somehow sweats drops of blueberry juice. Then all the air ends up back in his head again, then his chest, then his belly then his butt then his head then he turns to a hog then his head, butt, chest, ball, hotdog, butt, head, lightbulb, belly, butt, head…

“Wow, it’s like that old black magic gone haywire,” Seria says. “Voo, your voodoo and my chemistry really make quite the impact.”

“Let us not forget my knowledge in alien technology!”, Balloonie adds.

“Just wait until you see what else he’s in for,” Voo says.

As the balloon becomes less and less wrinkled, the man keeps shifting back and forth and all around into those several different forms, until a few moments later, they all combine into one. He is now a big-headed, big-bellied, hot dog balloon with a nozzle below his big butt. Now he’s thinking he’ll explode for sure, but then…

*FFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTT*

He deflates through said nozzle. He spins around and around, spreading his gas over the entire mob until he’s completely back to normal.

“Well, gag me,” Seria says.

The man, thinking it’s all over, breathes a sigh of relief, but his chest didn’t recede all the way. In fact, it’s beginning to stretch again while the balloon starts stretching, along with the rest of his body. It’s only a matter of time before he becomes orb shaped again, only this time with his head, feet and hands sunken deep into his expanding body. From there, he continues to swell bigger and bigger until he casts a shadow over the entire town.

*POW!*

Meanwhile, the Pride Balloon, which was the size of half the park, reaches its limits, and instead of bursting to pieces, just springs a leak. At the same time, the man springs a leak as well in his bellybutton.

*FFFFFRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRTTTTTTTTTTTTT*

Once again, the man deflates, only this time, he shrinks and shrivels down to be a flat and wide blowup doll, covering the center of the park.

“What could’ve possibly gone wrong?”, the man asks himself. He looks directly at the girls. “Just what did you girls do to me?!”

“The fault is not ours, evil man human,” Balloonie replies. “You are the one who acted on your own.”

“If you would’ve had the common sense to stop and read an instruction manual for a second,” Voo adds, “you’d know that whoever rubs these types of balloons on themselves will inflate along with it.”

The man gives a look of disbelief. “You mean…”, he stammers, “...I went through all the trouble…to get some worthless VOODOO GAGS?!?!” He completely loses his temper. “I DON’T BELIEVE THIS! IN A TOWN CHOCK FULL OF SCIENTISTS, WITCHDOCTORS, TECHNOLOGISTS, AND EVERY OTHER TYPE OF WHO KNOWS WHAT, HERE I WAS THINKING I WOULD STRIKE IT RICH, AND INSTEAD I GET USELESS PRANK TOYS!! THIS TOWN AND ITS GADGETS ARE WORTHLESS!!!”

Everyone narrows their eyes directly at the man’s face.

“...Oops.”

“Sounds like a confession to me,” says the head cop. “You guys can fold him up. He’s too flat for handcuffs.”

The Next Day

“All is officially right with the world again,” Voo says. “Everyone got their ‘worthless’ gadgets back.”

“I’ve got my lab back,” Seria says.

“And the part that is best,” Balloonie adds, “is that we have a new flag for the Month of Pride.”

Indeed. The man, still flat and multicolored from yesterday, was found guilty of all charges and was sentenced to be the city’s pride flag for every Pride Month.

“Feels good to take pride in originality, doesn’t it?” Voo taunts the man.

“You three will pay!!”, the man snaps back. “Mark my words, I’ll remember this!”

As the man flails helplessly in the wind, only one question remains: How much longer until the world hears from him again?