The Gravity

When the gravity went, I rushed to the bedroom, I leapt from the doorway and reached for her hand, reached as the picture frames lifted towards the ceiling and caught sideways on their nails. I caught the two silver rings on her middle fingers, for I knew they wouldn’t come off easily. I didn’t mean to wake you up, I said, but she wasn’t upset. We held each other on the ceiling and watched the cars fall past the window. Paul’s Geo Metro and Brandon’s minivan and Corey’s Honda and many more in the suburbs beyond.
Do you see anyone out there, she asked, and I saw her eyes were squeezed tight. Her eyeliner dark with flecks of gold. No, I said, but I had seen someone in the moment I turned the corner into our bedroom as I was pulled off the floor, as the books in the hallway lifted to the tops of their shelves. I had seen Paul Bishoff sail into the sky with the cars and rakes and garbage cans and cats and dogs and everything else. Okay, she said. We lay on the ceiling, her back to me, my arms wrapped around her torso, our legs crossed over each other’s, my shoelaces hanging up against her ankles. We lay over the bed and waited to float back down again.