I Still Believe in Blue Boy

Balloon Boy is the biggest presence in this poster, more so because he is absent. But that seemed to be the whole problem with Balloon Boy in the real world: he was never there.

Look only at this picture. The balloon is deflated, the box lies upside down, and the boy is missing. There is an emptiness, and yet the emptiness is pregnant. He will come. He will become. Even though he is not here, I still believe in him. As did thousands of people during the hours he was disappeared.

And that's how I think of myself, or the roles I play. There is an emptiness deep inside me, a thing I was born with, a thing that rummages through my insides and looks at everything with a curiosity. It tells me that I am an expeditionary, not a conquistador, and that I want to live down the rabbit hole, not peer into it from above.