Full Body Inflation

There once was a lad who always seemed sad
That some things were the stuff of cartoons.
"How happy I’d be - how delighted - " mused he,
"If some girls could blow up like balloons."

Now, it happened one night, that conditions were right,
And his timing could not have been better;
As he wished once again, there appeared in the den
A young lady in togs and a sweater.

June was perfect weather for a ride down the creek in a tube. It was hot and humid, making it a perfect day to be in the water.

Sara took the bus down to the Chatahoochie River and walked down the concrete steps to the shack that used to be the local bait shop. Now days it was a tube shop, where you could blow up your tube, patch a leak, or just kick back with a coke and watch the idiots. Sara opened the door.

Sherry chuckled to herself, musing over her escape from Terran justice. What a great joke it had been! Most people convicted of her crimes would have been sent to Beta-Orrigonus4, to serve out their sentence in hard labor. She knew about the conditions of that penal colony, as well as the effects of “hard labor.” It was a major coup to convince the courts to send her to Numa32.

The woman looked at me in complete disgust. She hadn’t taken her eyes off of me since they had brought me into the room and strapped me to the upright bed on the one side of the room. I didn’t put up a fight, knowing it was useless. When they had you, they had you – everyone knew that. I looked across the room, acknowledged the woman’s presence and her despising gaze, then examined the huge monitor opposite me on the other side of the room. I didn’t know exactly what they were going to do with me, but I knew I was in trouble.