balloon counseling

Voight has been moping around a lot lately, and I'm getting pretty worried. Today, I walked into the room and caught him floating dangerously close to an open window, just kind of staring out blankly. He shut it quickly, and mumbled something about how I shouldn't have left a window open like that, but I'm pretty sure they were all closed when I left this morning.

Voight has definitely been losing helium in the week since I've brought him home. I'd say he's lost at least six inches of diameter. While he still reaches the ceiling pretty easily, he definitely doesn't have to squeeze through doorways like he used to. This has been making him kind of melancholy, and he fixates on death like some crappy goth kid. Still, I have to feel bad for him: balloons don't exactly live as long as people, and I think it is kind of frightening for him to see himself wasting away in the mirror so quickly. His realization of his own mortality has sobered him up a lot, and he is definitely not the bright red balloon I once knew.

I'm not sure if it exists, but I think it might help him to get into balloon counseling, or at least an AIDS support group or something, so he can learn to cope with the inevitable end. Maybe if he saw that life isn't just waiting for death, he'd spring back up a bit. If you have any recommendations for balloon-counselors, or open-minded people-counselors, please tell me.

dls