Seeing as it had become apparent that he could not trust his eyes in determining whether or not there was someone near him or what they in fact were he decided to try something else...he decided to try and talk to them. However he wasn’t sure how he should speak, should he speak in a big empowering voice or should he try and sound like a nice caring guy? The former would allow him to possibly scare off this person who could quite possibly want to hurt him or pull his tail, while the latter would be useful in getting the person to trust him and if they had knowledge of his balloon this could turn out to be very useful indeed. This confusion over what voice to use caused him to speak in something that sounded sort of in between ‘Eh...I demand to know who you are? And also where are you? If you’d be so kind as to tell me and also do you perhaps know where my balloon is?’

Within seconds he was greeted with a reply ‘I’m Sally, I’m at your foot and is that some new sexual innuendo or somethin’?’

As much as he was surprised that someone had mistaken his comment on his balloon as some form of sexual innuendo it soon occurred to him that it must seem strange, very strange in fact, that a grown elephant would be searching for a balloon, however if one knew Phil’s life story one would know that this is not in fact strange at all.

One of the many adventures which Phil and his balloon had took place just six years previously, after graduating from High School, Phil decided (like many of his age do, if they have the money for such things, or are interested in such things, or...no matter what the reasons people seem to do it) to go to Ibiza. Now although Phil himself was not interested in clubbing or drinking or sex or any of the other various activities which Ibiza has to offer, his balloon was. Now most parents would be a little worried about their child’s best friend being a balloon and having said balloon tell him what to do, however Phil’s parents were not most parents (they were in fact just two parents, and the total number of parents in the world is...let’s make it easy and say infinity, therefore not only were Phil’s parents not most parents but they were also mathematically 0 of parents, which means they were not parents, or so Math says but no one really cares about Math because it’s annoying and boring and is actually recognised as a form of torture in bat society), instead of being a little worried about their son they were in fact extraordinarily worried about him.

‘No...it wasn’t some form of sexual innuendo...I was being completely serious’ Phil attempted to retort with authority but instead came out sounding like he was some form of idiots, which is in fact was what Sally thought of him, so much so that her next question was an enquiry about whether he actually was one or not, to which Phil replied ‘No I’m not an idiot...I’m just looking for my friend. He’s a balloon you see...or have you? Have you seen any balloons around?’

Sally wasn’t sure how she should answer this question; if this elephant was in fact telling the truth and he was not an idiot then she assumed he must be on some form of (illegal) drug. So following this line of thought; she enquired as if to whether or not he was using any drugs, this question caused Phil to remember back to that summer he spent in Ibiza with his balloon.

After spending hours, upon hours, upon hours... (Just imagine that repeating about twenty thousand times) upon hours trying to convince his parents to let him go to Ibiza they finally reached a compromise, he could go to Ibiza if he went to see a psychologist about his relationship with his balloon. Since he planned to go to Ibiza as soon as possible, his parents agreed with him that he could put off going to the psychologist until he came home but under the condition that he would go to see one straight away once he returned. The next day Phil (and his balloon) set off for Ibiza with a group of people from Phil’s school for a weeklong trip. One of the nights when they were in Ibiza (or perhaps day, as it is hard to tell night from day in Ibiza as 21 hours of each day is spent in various night-clubs and there’s so much alcohol consumed that it just feels like one great, or awful night-out depending on one’s personal preference), Phil and his “friends” (Phil wasn’t really sure of his relationship with these people, as either he did not know them or did not really like them but it was a lot easier to convince his parents to let him go if they thought he was going with friends) were at a nightclub and he was having a drink (7-up which he pretended was some form of alcohol so as to appear cool) when a lizard dropped something into his drink, little did he know (until much later) that what was dropped in his drink was in fact ecstasy, and seeing as he was having a long day (week) he didn’t really care (until much later).

“What? No, I’m not on drugs, legal or illegal; I’ve not been on drugs since...” Phil started to reply to Sally before he was cut off.

“Great, instead of bein’ stuck in the middle of nowhere with a drug-addict, I’m stuck with a recoverin’ one...well that sure is a turn-up in circumstances” Sally said with obvious sarcasm.

Phil picked up on this sarcasm quickly but wasn’t sure how to reply, so to Sally it appeared that he had not picked up on it, which made her again assume that he was in fact an idiot, despite his fierce protesting against this fact. When he eventually should words, Phil said “I’m not a recovering drug-addict! I only touched the stuff once, and I didn’t even mean to touch the stuff, it was forced on me...by a lizard”
“Right...a lizard...I believe ya druggie” Even though Phil could still not see Sally he assumed that if he could he would of seen her rolling her eyes as she said that

“Shut up! I’m telling the truth, that incident had some very serious lasting effect on me...and my relationship with my balloon...my balloon didn’t talk to me after that...” Phil said with an obvious sigh.

“Sounds to me like the drug cured ya then, what are ya moanin’ about?” One might think this would make Phil quite annoyed but Phil had in fact heard this before.

When Phil returned home, he went to see the psychologist the next day as he had promised his parents. His parents told him they had made an appointment for him with a psychologist by the name of Dr. Lois Keister, he found it quite odd that he was able to get an appointment so quickly, and assumed that either his parents had booked her before he had agreed to it, or she was a friend of the family (unlikely seeing as he had never seen her before in his life, but then again he didn’t like being around his parents’ friends so when they came around he was generally up in his room with his balloon) or that his parents had paid an obscene amount of money for this (this was the option he liked most because he was pretty annoyed at his parents for making him do this, so he just hoped it had cost them an arm and a leg, not literally of course...even though he did think that sounded nice for a second before realising that the type of doctor who would ask for an arm and a leg as payment may not be the type he would like to be alone in a room with for an hour a week).

As he opened the door to Dr. Keister’s office he was surprised by how roomy it was, then again a room that was anything but roomy is most likely not big enough to fit an elephant and allow him to move comfortably around, however this was still a shock as he had been picturing a claustrophobia-inducing room in his dreams; although they were not really dreams, the description horrific nightmares would probably describe them much better. On the other side of the room he saw Dr. Keister; she was very ordinary looking (at least to one who is familiar with what middle-aged female ostriches look like, so if you don’t pretend I said extraordinary looking and you’ll be grand with the whole mental image thing), she didn’t have the creepiness which one generally associates with shrinks (and definitely did not process the creepiness one would associate with someone who accepted payments in the form of arms and legs and this provided Phil with a great sense of relief). As the session began Phil and Dr. Keister started talking about various (generally uninteresting) parts of his life, it was not until forty minutes into the session did Dr. Keister acquire about his relationship with his balloon. ‘So, Phil...Your parents tell me that you have a balloon is that true?’ she enquired to which Phil simply nodded. She began to talk again ‘And according to your parents you claimed that your balloon was communicating with you, is this also true?’ Again Phil nodded and again she continued to talk ‘Now tell me Phil; does the balloon still talk to you. Phil shook his head; Dr. Keister seemed to make a mental note of this. She continued talking once again ‘Now tell me Phil, when exactly was it that the balloon stopped communicating with you?’

Phil spent several moments contemplating how he should answer this question, before finally deciding to go with the truth. ‘Well you see it was when I took drugs’ he said as casually as he could.

Dr. Keister nodded (which if you have seen an ostrich’s neck is an interesting and quite possibly dangerous sight to anyone within a 3 foot radius of the ostrich) and said ‘So the drugs apparently cured you of your delusions? Interesting’

Phil got up quickly and angrily shouted ‘They did not cure me of my delusions! Do you know why? Well do you? I’ll tell you, it was because I was never delusional! My balloon can talk! And one day I’ll prove it to you all, as soon as he starts talking to me again, you’ll see!’ With that Phil stormed off out of the room never to return again (at least not yet). You might wonder what happened to Phil’s plans to reconcile things with his balloon so they could get back onto speaking terms again, while the truth is the next day Phil and his balloon were out in the field near the old school. Here they proceeded to have an argument (or Phil who was originally begging his balloon to start talking, soon turned to anger and shouting, meanwhile the balloon just stayed in one place and listened to what Phil had to say), at the end of the this argument Phil turned his back to his balloon for a second, but this was enough time for his balloon to disappear. Upon turning around Phil found that not only was his balloon not where it was a second ago but also that it was not in the general area around him. Phil spent the next several days searching the general area, and once this failed to work, he (according to some went crazy) vowed that he would go out into the big wide world and never come back until he had found his balloon, and this was how Phil’s mission started.