The field before sunrise

Text: an original contemporary personal-account-style practice extract.

We reached the field while the grass was still silver with dew. The balloon lay folded across the ground, an enormous colourless shape that seemed to have arrived before its own purpose. Everyone faced it. I did too, though there was very little to see.

Then the crew began to work. They spread the fabric, checked the ropes and opened the burner. A gust lifted one edge and sent it rippling over the grass like a wave that had lost its water. The crowd shuffled closer, then stopped as the burner gave a low roar. Heat filled the fabric; slowly, the balloon rose from the field, its bright panels appearing one after another.

People lifted their phones, but I watched the crew instead. They had become tiny figures beneath the colours they had raised. When the balloon finally drifted beyond the trees, the field seemed oddly larger, and the crew were already gathering the ropes. I had expected to remember the balloon in the sky. What stayed with me was the quiet work left behind when everyone else looked up.