The balloon in the shed

Original fiction extract.

The weather station’s shed looked too small to contain anything meant for the sky. On the bench lay a folded balloon, pale and unimpressive beside a clipboard. The technician attached it to the equipment and asked me to stand back from the table. I expected a quick change from a small object to a larger one. Instead, the room seemed to change around it.

At first the balloon was a crumpled question, its loose surface uncertain of any shape. Then the folds retreated, and a pale shoulder rose from the bench. It climbed without effort, growing rounder while the shed’s corners seemed to shrink away. The window became a small, dark postage stamp beside it. Light spread through the stretched surface like milk poured into water, thinning the shadows without making the balloon transparent. By the time the technician checked the measure, a patient moon was waiting at the end of her hand.

She guided it towards the open doors. I stepped outside first, surprised to find the yard had remained its ordinary size. Against the wide sky the balloon looked smaller. In the shed, the clipboard was still lying on the bench, exactly where it had been before the room became too small for its visitor.

Choose three powerful words or phrases from the extract above. Analyse how the writer uses language to present the growing balloon and its effect on the space around it.

Write about 200 to 250 words.