All That Goes Up

by Kirby Brooks

straight-faced, wasbeginning to grin a little around the edges. Mary still seemedconvinced that Duchess and I had done it on purpose.

  Jim finally gathered his wits enough to start pushing the bed underus. Between the three of them they managed to bypass the wires to theplastic plate and set the bed over it. I noticed that it bucked alittle as the edge went over the plate, but I didn't get time to seemuch because no sooner had the bed been pushed over it than the wholething with the exception of the frame, rose straight up and smotheredthe dog and me very effectively! After the first moment of panic,consisting of flailing arms, legs, muffled barks and curses, I wasable to shove the bedding aside so we could breathe again. I had juststarted to yell at Jim to turn the thing off and stand aside, whenthat's just what he did. I clutched at Duchess, hoping to break bothour falls I guess, but nothing happened!

  I looked at Jim, and he was looking at the plug in his hand. There wasa dazed look on his face, and I'm sure there was one on mine too.Duchess just licked my face and wagged her tail. For a space of abouttwo breaths no one spoke, then all started at once....

  "Jim, you pull out that plug right now and get your father down fromthere!" That was Mary.

  "Don't just stand there like a dope ... turn that damn thing off!"That was me.

  "Jimmy, where's your camera? I want to get a picture of this!" Thatwas Johnny.

  Duchess just whined, and wagged her tail apologetically.

  "Jim," I said, very softly, "Will you please stop messing around andget us down from here?"

  "I unplugged it, Dad ... I don't know why you're still up there." Heshook his head.

  Johnny, bless his little heart, had what seemed to be a good idea;"Why not get hold of the wires and pull the plate out from underthem?"

  So Jim eased up to within about a foot of the plate, grabbed the wiresand started pulling. I had no sensation at all. We just stuck there.Even with the plate out in the hall!

  * * * * *

  Jim stood for a moment in thought, then looked up at us and said,"Well, maybe it'll wear off in a little while, as you graduallydischarge whatever kind of charge you got from the plate."

  "What do you mean by 'charge'?" I asked.

  "Well, not knowing what kind of field I generated with that plate, Icouldn't tell you offhand, but it is probably something like this; yousee, apparently what I did was not cut gravity off exactly, butchanged the normal electrical charge in whatever object came into thefield. Seems to me if I had cut gravity with the plate, you would havefallen when I turned it off. As it is, you're still there," he addedrather unnecessarily.

  And Jim, as his teen-age friends used to say, wasn't just whistlingDixie. We were definitely, unquestionably still there.

  About this time I became aware of a pain in the small of my back. Fora man who is pushing 60, I'm in pretty good shape except for mysacroiliac. Just my luck, I thought. Here I am, plastered to theceiling, and that thing has to start acting up. In moving a bitthough, I heard a scraping sound and found I had more than one pain inmy back. Feeling carefully under me, I found that it wasn't thesacroiliac at all, but a cigarette lighter, two gloves, a pack ofcigarettes, and two golf balls. I tried to toss the balls down to thefloor and all they did was go almost down then curve right back up andbounce on the ceiling, where they settled. I tried the same thing withthe gloves and back they came too. So I lit one of the cigarettes,even without my morning coffee.

  Mary had been silent for awhile, but apparently she had the samethought. "Ralph, aren't you coming down for breakfast?" she asked,pleadingly.

  "I don't know, honey. But I do know I'm sure getting hungry, even inthis position." And turning so I could see her better, if you can turnwhile lying on the ceiling looking down, I said, "Do you suppose youcould whip up something to eat? And maybe put it on a pole so youcould hand it up?" She allowed as how she could, but Jim, who had beenin one of his brown studies again spoke up; "I don't believe we'llneed a pole, Dad. Now that the plastic plate's been turned off andmoved, everything's all right."

  "Everything's all right!" I growled. "If everything's so all right,why don't we come down? How long's it going to take, anyway?"

  * * * * *

  "Well, it's hard to say," Jim shrugged. "In fact, I've been thinkingmaybe I ought to call Professor Jordan up at school and ask him whatto do."

  "Is he an expert?"

  "Well, I'd call him that. The trouble is, I don't know what I did, soI certainly don't know how to un-do it. Maybe he'll have an idea."

  "Does he know about anti-gravity?"

  "I don't imagine so, but he's the head of electronics and I know he'sbeen working on the unified field theory just as a hobby. He's thefellow who got me to wondering about energized metal particles incolloidal suspension. Think I'd better call him?"

  "Son," I said, trying to retie my bathrobe belt, "You not only callhim, but if it's possible, get him to come here.... I've got to getdown. Hell, I haven't even shaved yet this morning, and I've got tobe at work in about two hours."

  "You may not get down from there that soon, but I'll go call him rightnow."

  Jim left for the phone, and shortly Mary came in with a steaming trayof food. That's where the fun began.

  First of all, picture the old house. It was very old, and had high,pine-paneled ceilings ... probably twelve feet high. Duchess and Iwere a little off-center, closer to the door, I guess. The room wasbig, and being on the ground floor, had a dormer window looking out onour rather scraggly garden. In fact, pretty soon I began to get theimpression from the pine "boards" "beneath" me, that I was actuallylying on a floor, and the ceiling to floor dormer window didn't doanything to help either. Curtains looked rather odd though, stickingstraight "up."

  About the food: Mary was right under us with the tray. She put itdown, picked up a bowl of oatmeal and started to hand it to me. Shecouldn't reach high enough and I couldn't reach down far enough. Thethought crossed my mind, "why not stand up?" Well, I tried it,Brother! What a sensation! As I began gathering my legs under me, theidea of being on a pine floor increased. Increased until I made themistake of looking out the window! It's just plain impossible todescribe, but try to imagine how it would look right now, if youlooked out your window ... at the top (to you) is the ground, and atthe bottom? Nothing! Just nothing, but blue sky. The vertigo waspretty bad and I flopped back down, or rather "up" and tried to regainmy equilibrium.

  "What's the matter?" my wife asked. "Don't you want any breakfast?"

  * * * * *

  As soon as I caught my breath, I said, "Well, yes and no, honey. Couldyou or Johnny get a ladder? I think that might do it." I could staylying down that way.

  Johnny brought in the short stepladder, so without standing "up" I atleast got my hands on the food. Hands is about all. Here's a picturefor you.... Flat on your back; an open dish of hot oatmeal open sideto, coming right at you. When you grab it you have to reach aroundbehind it to keep it from falling. You get it right up to your face,take the spoon and start to take a bite. How do you do it? I don'tknow either. I gave up oatmeal right then and there. Johnny, andagain, bless his little heart, had the idea that saved us. "Hey, Dad,why don't you try a banana?" It worked! In fact, most any food thatwas in a chunk could be eaten. Difficult, but it could be done. Thebig problem then was liquid, and again Johnny came to my rescue withsome fountain straws from the corner drugstore. For Duchess it waseasy. She just lapped.

  About the time we finished the battle of breakfast, Jim came back withword from Professor Jordan.

  "Dad, I don't think the professor believed me, but he's on his wayhere."

  "Well, thank the Lord," I exclaimed. "Did he think you were completelyout of your head?"

  "Not exactly, but he did think I might be exaggerating just a little,I think."

  "When will he get here?" Mary asked.

  "He said he'd catch a plane out of there as soon as he could, and it'sonly a two and a half hour flig
ht, mother."

  "Then he'll be here this afternoon?" I asked.

  "He seemed to think he would."

  "Oh, goodness, I hope so," Mary said. "We've got a date with theRipleys to go to a movie tonight."

  I snorted. "Movies at a time like this! Why it might take days for usto get discharged."

  Days? Holy Smoke! I wondered how long it _would_ take? Already, I wasgetting tired of lying down. Hey, wait a minute! What about thesprings,