| Ceiling- Aquilae Stilus, 1997 "What the heck do indirect proofs have to do with geometry, anyway?" Jenny demanded of no one in particular. And it was good that she was asking no one in particular, because that's exactly who was in the living room with her. She sighed and tucked her feet up underneath her on her dad's favorite blue armchair. Then she twisted and flopped until she was sitting backwards, legs flung out over the lowered back of the chair. Maybe this would stimulate brain cells. No, it felt too much like stomach crunches in P.E. She relaxed her abdominal muscles and hung headfirst over the edge of the La-Z-Boy's seat. Whoa. New perspective. What would the world be like if gravity suddenly turned upside down? Her hair brushed the carpet below- no, above- her head. She grinned and loosened her hold on her geometry homework, relishing the satisfying thwoosh it made falling to the blue carpet, with useless, senseless papers flying. Then Jenny looked out, over a shallow, baby-blue sea that reached up with fuzzy fingers to tickle her scalp. A giggle rolled up- no, down- her throat and stumbled out her mouth. "Cool." The room was so much bigger from up here. No wonder birds got cocky- they owned a lot more domain. She frowned, eyes tracking to the white stuccoed ceiling that leaped up to bridge across the room, usually invisible on the underside of the walkway upstairs. It would hurt to walk on that thing barefoot. She'd have to remember that in the future. Architects were clumsy. Didn't they realize that they shouldn't put little ledges in front of doorways like that? If someone weren't careful they'd trip over that eighteen-inch-high arch and go flying. Unless in the upside-down world they were into hurdling. Was the house really that detailed? She'd never noticed. Or maybe the upside-down people had added little decorations that only they could see, so the weird right-side people would miss out. Look at that- shapes in the stucco. Like searching for pictures in the clouds. A horse's head, a pair of lips, an angry eye, a... Jenny gazed across the carpety ocean to the confused sofa that dangled on the edge of its stranglehold with the threads that prevented the fall to destruction. Her eyes fluttered down to the ceiling fan swirling lazily below. Her hands clutched quickly at the arms of the chair, anchoring her grip to the one stalactite standing- or, rather, hanging- between her and those spinning wooden blades that no longer seemed so innocuous. One slip and- she'd be pepperoni. She'd always complained about being too tall with feet that were too big, but she didn't want to become shorter that way! And where the deadly ceiling fan was concerned, her big feet were just fine. Gravity was becoming stronger. She fought hard, yanking on the cloth of the La-Z-Boy's upholstery, but gravity was winning. She was being dragged slowly off her perch, sliding out of safety. The stalactite was becoming slippery. "Jenny, your face is purple," her little brother called as he walked past. How did his feet stick to the ceiling like that? Was he wearing magic shoes? Jenny twisted her head to see better. Then her snatching fingers lost purchase. She closed her eyes and waited for the first slice of the menacing ceiling fan. *Thunk.* "Ow," she muttered. She cracked open one eye. The sea had turned, and was flowing like a wall beside her cheek. Whoa. New perspective. What would the world be like if gravity suddenly turned sideways? |