Anomaly in the Sky

It's worth asking why we're so intrigued by stories of absurdity. A 6-year old boy takes off in a silver mylar balloon built by his father, and swirls over Denver in a tiny compartment that hovers underneath the semi-inflated silver dome. It twirls and dances over fields before it gently settles on the ground, to reveal no boy. The internet screams, "Where is he?" The boy's name is Falcon, we learn. Of course it is. Within an hour, screen printers start manufacturing T-shirts that say "Go Falcon, go!" People sit, glued to TVs, to computers. By next week we won't remember this boy, we won't think of him. But at the moment, we are obsessed with the weirdness of it all, for lack of a better word. The creepy sense that maybe this means something, because it is such an anomaly, because it is so absurd. And maybe it means nothing.