KRIS ERICKSON

 

The world had literally turned upside down. Not the “literally” where someone says, “I ate so much chocolate-peanut butter pie that I’m literally going to explode.” No, the kind of “literally” where people were walking down the street or working at their crappy job or eating too much chocolate-peanut butter pie, when all of a sudden earth’s gravitation pull fully and immediately reversed. Most everyone, then, fell. They fell along with their cars, phones, houses, places of work, wives, husbands, kids, friends, bosses, dogs, and all of the chocolate-peanut butter pie. They fell until they found themselves floating in space, dead. So, the world had literally turned upside down.  Some people got to stick around, though. Let’s move on. 

​

1.

     Nate was hollering at his kids to clean their rooms again.  He yelled at his kids to clean their rooms a lot, mostly because their rooms were always really dirty.  But getting his kids to clean their rooms was an uphill battle as it was pretty much, probably, the end of the world.

     “I’m sick and tired of stepping on toys every time I walk into your room,” Nate said to his son Michael. “And you,” he said to his daughter Beatrix, “if I took care of you the way you take care of your dolls, someone would call child protection on me.” The truth was, there was no more child protection and what she had could barely be considered dolls. They were more like stuffed animals with baby faces stapled on.

     Through the kitchen window behind his kids, Nate noticed his neighbor Larry Carlson mouthing something from the attic window of his little gray one and a half story. “What’d he say?” Nate said walking to the window and opening it down.  Nate wondered for a minute why Larry was sitting there with a rope around his neck.  “What’d he say?” he asked Michael.

     “He told you to shut up and stop yelling at us and to listen to him,” Michael said.

     “Watch it,” Nate said to Michael. “What’d you say?” Nate called out the open window.

     “I said, ‘shut up, stop yelling at your kids, and listen to me for once.’’’ Larry said.

     “For once?” Nate thought, but said, “Why are you down there?” 

     “I’m done with this,” Larry called back.  He was a big man, tall and round, but strong. Nate might have been mistaken, but it looked as if the yellow and black rope around Larry’s neck was the one they had lost around a month ago.

     Nate turned to Michael.  “I need to go talk to Larry.  You and your sister go clean your rooms now.  I won’t ask you again.  You go clean your rooms.  You won’t like what happens if you don’t.” Realizing he might have said too much, he said, “Just go clean your rooms.”

     “Is Uncle Larry ok?” Beatrix asked.

     “Yes,” Nate said.

     “He’s crying,” she said.

     Nate turned to see that Larry was indeed crying.  This was concerning, as Larry was not a crier. He’d once confided to Nate that he hadn’t even cried at the end of Rudy.

     Nate looked back and forth from one kid to the other.  “Go to your rooms,” he said, thinking he might add on “Please,” he instead said, “Now.”

     Nate opened the kitchen door, stepped up onto the lintel, and reached out to grab the rope that led from Nate’s door to Larry’s. This was the only way across, since the sidewalk was now up, and the sky was where your feet wanted to be. Nate took a breath, stepped off the lintel and began a hand over hand lateral climb to the house across the street. 

     Nate could still sense his kids in the doorway behind him. “Now!” he said not turning around. His kids had seen a lot. They didn’t need to see this. 

     “On my way, buddy,” Nate said down to Larry.

     “Maybe you shouldn’t come over,” Larry said.  

     Nate quickened his pace now, skinning his knuckles on the concrete blocks above. He hadn’t had time to put his climbing gloves on, an omission he now cursed. “You found our missing rope,” Nate said, attempting to lighten the mood.

     “It wasn’t missing,” Larry said. “I lied about that.  Sorry.”

“That’s ok.” Before he lost sight of Larry as he closed in on the door, Nate said, “Don’t…”  “Move,” he might’ve added, or maybe he would’ve said, “Jump,” but he was glad he didn’t say that. 

     Nate reached down and tried the doorknob. “Locked,” he said out loud.

     “Sorry,” Larry said from somewhere down below.

     Nate gave the door a good kick and nothing happened.  On the next kick, his foot went through the window. “Oops. Sorry.”

     “It’s ok.”

     He reached inside the broken glass, opened the door, dropped onto the ceiling of Larry’s kitchen, and ran to the stairwell to slide down into the attic. 

     One end of the yellow and black rope was tied around the exposed brick chimney, which came down through the center of the house. The other end of the rope was still tied around Larry’s neck as he sat in the window. There were four crushed Budweiser cans loitering on the ceiling under the window. 

     “Beer?” Nate said.

     Larry glanced at the cans and then looked up to Nate, embarrassed. “I lied about that too,” he said. “Sorry.”

      “That’s ok,” Nate said stepping forward. “Happens to the best of us.”

     Larry took a deep breath. “Why couldn't it have been zombies?” Tears welled in his eyes. “Why did it have to be ‘upside down world?’”

     Nate hated when he called it that, but Larry was right. This sad and quiet apocalypse left a lot to be desired.

     Larry was watching Nate now, and Nate could tell that he was waiting for something. Something that might change his mind, but Nate hesitated and Larry readied himself to go. 

     “Whoa!” Nate said stepping forward again. “Don’t do that. We can talk about this.”

     Larry laughed a sad laugh and eyeballed Nate. It had been months since the two men had had anything approaching a real conversation. They had simply run out of things to say.

“I’m sorry you weren’t left with someone more interesting,” Larry said.

     Nate blinked, thought, and then said, “C’mon, you’re the man,” so halfheartedly it was almost as if he didn’t say it at all. 

     Larry dug his wood handled knife from his pocket and tossed it to Nate. “Make sure I’m dead before you cut it. Please, I don’t want to be alive for the fall.”

     Nate took another step forward. “Don’t jump.”

     Larry chuckled again. “What are we waiting around for? What’s the point?”

     Nate started to answer about fifty different ways, but stopped every time, not believing any of them.

     Larry’s sad smile turned down and his tears began to fall. “Tell your kids I’m sorry. Tell them I was just done.” Nate started forward and Larry said, “Sorry,” as he slid out the window. Nate waited for the “thwap,” of the rope, but the “thwap,” never came, and then the screaming began. Nate either ran or fell or a combination of both to the open window just in time to see that Larry’s head had slipped from the noose, and he was now trying to swim his way out of free fall. It turned out the universe had one last joke to play on Larry, the last person Nate and his kids knew.

     Nate heard a gasp and looked up to see his children still standing in the doorway across the street, their eye’s following the man who’d become their uncle, screaming his way into oblivion. When he was finally gone, they didn’t move. They didn’t even seem to breath. 

     “I told you to clean your fucking rooms!” Nate yelled, tears in his own eyes now. The children snapped out of their trances and found him in the window. Michael quickly broke away, disappearing into the house. Beatrix’s face turned red and she began to sob.

​

     Nate didn’t go home right away. He wished he hadn’t said that thing to his children, but he wished for many things that didn’t come true these days. 

     He wished his wife could be here to deal with the kids on this one. She would have known exactly how to make them feel better, but she’d been flipped off with most everyone else. Even Larry would have known better what to say to Michael and Beatrix, but he was probably hitting the last of Earth’s atmosphere right about now.  Maybe, Nate thought, if he wished hard enough, his kids would forget the entire incident by the time he returned home. Stranger things had happened.  It’d be nice if one of these unexplainable anomalies could go his way for once. That would be a nice surprise. Nate needed one of those. Larry had just been one more bad surprise in a long history of bad surprises. This world just didn’t seem have any nice surprises left. 

     On the wall hung a portrait of Larry and his wife, Linda, wearing sombreros, presumably on a trip to Mexico.  They’d never had children and Linda had died from cancer about a year before The Flip.  Nate hadn’t really known her.  In those days there was nothing but the passing hello between the neighbors who lived across the street from each other. 

     Nate chucked the portrait of Larry and Linda in Mexico out the window, making a wish that it would find his falling friend. 

​

     The children had retreated to their usual places, Michael to his bedroom and Beatrix had climbed to the tire swing that hung from the tree in the backyard. 

     The tree was an ancient Elm that had either split off when it first sprouted or had been two trees that had grown into one, leaning out both ways like a giant “V.”  Since The Flip, trees had stopped growing leaves and had instead covered their bodies with a shaggy green moss that dripped with water. Much of the grass and dirt from the yard had fallen away so you could see the roots of the old elm reaching out to the younger trees nearby, maybe to steady them until their own roots had grown deep enough into the ground. The roots twisted in and amongst themselves and in the space between, warm gusts of winds would escape the earth.

     Nate had been forced to create stories about the trees once his kids tired of his puppet show reenactments of the TV show Friends.  In these stories, the trees sang a song that beckoned children inside to the kind and beautiful Root Queen. Not very creative, but his kids liked the stories. Well, Beatrix still did.

 

     Beatrix was pushing off the tree humming the strange song she had taken to recently, which was more of a single sustained note, drawn out and carried over the air. “Aaaaaahhhh.” But then she seemed to sense something and stopped singing. She sat up and looked at Nate. “Why did he do that?” she demanded. Her eyes were red and puffy. “He must be stupid!” She started to cry again.

​

     “You in there?” Nate said knocking on Michael’s bedroom door.

     No response.

     “Can I come in?”

     “No,” Michael said.

     “Ok.  You ok?  You wanna talk?”

     “I’m ok.”

     “Ok,” Nate said.  “Let me know if you wanna talk.” 

     No response.

​

     Well, Nate was glad that was all over. He was able to console his little girl after a few minutes of hugging, and Michael hadn’t wanted to talk about it at all. Clean and simple, just the way Nate liked it.

​

     The three sat quietly eating their dinner.  The food tonight was warm for a change, as Nate thought it might be a good night to break out his old Coleman camping stove.  They each ate directly from their own can with white plastic spoons.  Beatrix’s favorite was SpaghettiOs, but tonight she just picked at them.  “It’s warm,” Nate said to her.

     She brightened and took a bite of the little round noodles.  “It’s good,” she said, but Nate could tell she was only saying it for his sake.  Coleman fuel was low, even at the grocery store, so they usually only ate warm meals on special occasions, birthdays and when someone died.  Nate, though, was the only one who seemed to care whether or not a meal was warm or cold.

     Michael was plowing through a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli.  

     “Slow down,” Nate said to him.

     The boy nodded and slowed down.

     Nate himself was eating what he estimated to be about the five hundredth can of Dinty Moore beef stew.  

     “What do you guys want to do tonight?” Nate thought maybe they should play a board game or something.  “Monopoly?” he looked back and forth between his kids. “How about Sorry?” He poked Michael’s arm.

     “I’m cleaning my room,” Michael said.

     Nate put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Listen, you can do that another time. Tonight we should just hang out together.”

     “That’s ok,” Michael said, “I want to.”

     “How about you sweetie?” Nate asked Bea.

     “Why did Larry do that?” Bea said.

     “I don’t know,” Nate stammered.  “I already told you I didn’t know why.”

     But she just stared at him.

     “I think he missed his wife,” Nate finally said. Seemed as a good a reason as any.

     Bea sat in stunned silence.  “He had a wife?”

     “Yes.”

     “When?”

     “When you were little.”

      “Did you know her?”

     “A little.”

     “Was she nice?”

     “I think so.”

     “Was she friends with mom?”

     “No.”

     “Why?”

     “I don’t know.”

     “Was she pretty?”

     “She was ok…Listen, let’s just finish our dinner.”

      “I know why he did it,” Michael said.  Nate and Beatrix stopped what they were doing and turned to face him. “Because he’s a pussy,” Michael said.  “He was just a big pussy.”

     “Hey!” Nate said.

     “No he wasn’t!” Beatrix said slamming the can of SpaghettiOs away from her.

     Nate put his hand on Beatrix’s back to calm her.  He turned to Michael.  “Why would you say that?”

     “Because it’s true,” Michael said.  “He couldn’t handle any of this anymore, so he killed himself.” Michael smiled and looked down.  “You’re a pussy too. So am I.  And you too,” pointing at his sister, who began to cry in a helpless rage.

     Nate brought his fist down on the table. 

     Michael cracked another smile and got up to leave the table.  

     “Sit back down!” Nate said, but Michael just walked towards his room. “Sit down please,” Nate said again. Nate didn’t try to stop the boy though, instead he shouted, “Clean your room then,” and held his inconsolable daughter.

​

     After dinner, the only clean up required was to toss the cans and spoons out the nearest window, much easier than the old days, and highly preferable. It was one of the few post-Flip improvements. Dumping the cans, Nate noticed the noose still hanging from Larry’s attic window, and made a mental note to pull it up later.

     Beatrix had wanted Nate to tell her one of his stories tonight, but that was too much for him right now, so she settled on her favorite book, The Giving Tree. As a father who had brought two kids up on this book, he was a master at it, barely having to glance at the text as he voiced the boy who went from playful child to bitter old man over the course of the story. For the tree, he donned a soft-spoken and nurturing voice. It occurred to him sometimes that Beatrix might be too old for this book, but hell, it was the end of the world. People could read what they wanted now. He did know that if Beatrix’s mother were still here, the girl would be reading at the appropriate level, whatever that is when you’re seven.

     They had reached the point in the story when the boy, now an unhappy middle-aged businessman, returns to ask the tree for a boat. But before the boy could chop the tree down, the page had been torn out, flipped upside down, and taped back into the book. The text had been blacked out and a balloon had been drawn coming out of the boy’s mouth while the tree hung safely from the top of the page. “Aaaaaaahhhhh!!!” it read. The boy was still falling on the next page, but was now joined by, I Am Sam, Curious George, The Man in The Yellow Hat, and Dora, all extracted from their own books and inserted into this horror show. “Aaaaahhhhh!!!”   Michael had replaced the next double spread page with two sheets of black construction paper which he had poked tiny holes in for stars. Down in space, even more characters, Pikachu, and Frog and Toad, and Pooh and Alice now joined the boy. There were no more word balloons though, and all of their eyes had been “X’d” out. 

     On the last page, the tree just hung from the top of the page, alone. “And the tree was happy,” the caption read.

Nate and Beatrix sat in stunned silence.

     Beatrix said, “Why did he do this?” and the tears began to flow down for the third or forth time today.

     Nate gently took the book from his crying daughter, his hands shaking, as he slowly walked to Michael’s room counting backwards from ten. He expected to find the boy with the same sadistic smile from dinner, but instead Michael was crying as he dropped the last of his things out his open window. 

     “Room’s clean,” Michael said.

 

     That night, Nate lay on the mattress on the ceiling of his bedroom.  He silently cursed the photo of his wife that sat beside him. He told her the kids had been left with the wrong parent. He wished the world hadn’t flipped. He wished Larry hadn’t jumped. He wished that it had been him who had fallen instead of her. He wished his kids didn’t need him. He wished he had never had kids at all. He wished he had never grown up. He wished, and wished, and wished, and finally fell asleep.

 

     He dreamt the same dream he always dreamt. He had to stand on the ground and watch his wife float up into the sky, away from him forever.