The Red Balloon Found at Last.........

 The writing on this color penciled xerox from 1974 says:

I can't imagine where that balloon went!  I can understand where the smile went, and I could find out where Felicia went and is still going and even the bottle of beer.  I know it's been a part of our biology and excreted and absorbed and evaporated and it may even be beer again for all I know, but.....the balloon.  

I have this feeling it must be the key, the one unpopable thing in this picture;  that when Felicia and I find ourselves drinking beer on some summer day we can't yet imagine or hope for, watching our reflections in the water, the Balloon will have been there all along, waiting for us.

Only we won't remember.