Short Story: Indeed

by O'Keefe

Indeed, it was a strange and peculiar morning when Mrs. Gershom from next door knocked on my door and woke me up. You see, it was a Saturday, and I needed my good old fifteen. For that reason - and that reason explicitly - I didn't answer the door until it rang for two more hours. When I rolled off my bed, rolled out of my room, and rolled downstairs, I rolled over to the door and opened it to reveal an anxious Mrs. Gershom, a look of pure distress clear upon her face.
   "Random neighbor, please! You have to help me!"
   "Well, technically, I don't have to...."
   "You must come, quick! There's something wrong with Atahualpa!"
   Indeed, Atahualpa was the mister. I couldn't think of an event when there wasn't something wrong with him, but I went anyway, borrowing my twin cats' litter boxes in place of slippers. I edited the house, kicked down the Gershom Family mailbox, and went to see what was wrong with the mister.
   Indeed, upon my entry into the Gershom domain, I noticed right away something was wrong with Mr. Gershom. For one thing, he didn't have his afternoon spectacles on. For quite another, he was rather upside down, and walking on the ceiling.
   "Mr. Atahualpa Gershom!" I called fanatically. "What are you doing on the ceiling?!"
   "That's what I'm asking myself," he replied evenly. "I just went to bed all regular last night, and when I awoke, I was lying on the ceiling."
   Indeed, this was just a little too weird for my liking - especially so early in the morning. His accouter was a distasteful checkered suit, and the coat, as well as his tie - which I found especially unceremonious - hung down to the floor, covering his face a little and swaying in an irritating pattern. But as for his hair, which was longer than yours, it pointed up toward the ceiling, rather than hanging down to the ground, making him look like an image flipped upside down. Blood rushed not to his face, nor was he having any great difficulty breathing.
   "So," I said nonchalantly, "you just woke up on the ceiling?"
   "Yeah," he replied. "I don't know how I got up here, but all I know is that I did, and I can't get down. Will you help me?"
   "Probably not," I said. "Did you try jumping? You might be able to jump out of the ceiling's gravitational pull."
   Indeed, he jumped, but to no avail. Then we tried pulling him down; we got so far as pinning his arms to the floor, his legs dangling up in the air, before he shot right up to the ceiling again, as if he had fallen to the floor from a tremendous height.
   "Hmmm," I said, musing over the present situation. "It could be the shampoo he used last night for his shower. Did he use any new or foreign shampoos whilst showering last night?"
   "He doesn't take showers," replied the misses.
   "Well, then," I observed rather I helpfully, "then maybe that's the reason why he's on the ceiling!"
   "But that would mean the cave men would be on their cave ceilings."
   "Maybe they got off by taking a bath. Mr. Gershom - take a bath."
   "But the water shoots the wrong - er, right way," replied Atahualpa. "I can't bear the thought of taking a shower that way."
   "Do it anyway, wimp."
   Indeed, he acceded; however, to no good. He was as upside down as he ever was upon stepping out of the bathroom - though I found out his hair was actually blond. Then I proposed the Gershoms had a radiation problem, but this made less sense than my last theory. I decided the  to interrogate Mr. Gershom personally, rather than through his wife.
   "Mr. Gershom," I asked, profoundly and politely, "did you do anything out of the ordinary last night?"
   "No," he responded. "All I did was nourish myself with tonic whilst riding my grandfather's inherited ostrich down the Rockies. I did nothing at all strange."
   "Hmph," I said profoundly. "Maybe you should call an expert on this."
   "Well," said Mrs. Gershom, "I looked in the yellow book for an anti-gravity, upside down doctor, and lo and behold, there were none to be found."
   "Interesting. Then call any old doctor. Or the police."
   "No!" exclaimed Atahualpa. "I'm sick of the police!"
   "Then the doctor."
   "But I ate my apple!"
   "Look here," said Mrs. Gershom defensively, "we're law-abiding offenders, and we're healthy, so we shouldn't have to allow those people make their way into our homes."
   "He doesn't look too healthy to me," I said, indicating Mr. Atahualpa J. Gershom, who, in fact, looked rather upside down. "That's what I suggest; there's nothing else I can do for him."
   "Well, at the very least try!"
   Indeed, try I did; I stayed the whole day at the Gershom's house. I was late for my job by God knows how many hours, and all I did at their house was suggest nonsense and eat them out of house and home. Mr. Gershom sat on the ceiling, contemplating the light fixture, whilst I looked up in the encyclopedia cases such as these. There appeared to be none.
   "Well, Mr. Gershom, sir," said I to the mister, looking up from my less-than-scanty supply of ice cream (cookies and cream). "At least you might be famous for this."
   "I don't want to be famous!" Atahualpa was indignant. "I just want to be able to sit in a chair, or put on a tie that doesn't fly in my face - and to drink a drink, without it falling up to the ceiling - er, floor."
   "Well," I commented unhelpfully, "that's too bad. Whoops! Would you look at the time! I'd better absquatulate! Goodbye!" And with that, I sped out the door.
Indeed, what I really wanted to do was to get a police officer down to Gershom Place to see Mr. Gershom and his antics. Whilst I was accomplishing such, Mr. Gershom, PhD, decided he had spent enough time under the roof, and needed a breath or two of fresh air. With that purpose in mind, he walked to the door, reached up and turned the knob, then stepped swiftly outside.
   Indeed, if I hadn't arrived at that very moment, I wouldn't have believed it myself. But I was there, and I jumped from the back of the police officer's vehicle as I saw Mr. Gershom, clinging desperately to the satellite dish, being pulled upwards by some invisible force. Understandably, he was yelling, "Help Me!"
   Indeed, Mrs. Gershom was rather annoyed that he had to go up there.  "Taylor!" she exclaimed, changing his name due to the occasion. "You come down from there right this instant!"
   "Can't!" he replied, now hugging the dish. "Just get me down!"
   "Got a ladder?" asked the cop. 
   Indeed, it was at that moment that the satellites dish snapped, and he rose swiftly in the air. Dropping the dish back to the earth he longed for, his hair now stretching to the ground wildly, he shot up to the blue sky, and fell out of sight.
"Wow," said the policeman, after a minute's silence. "That was odd."
   "Indeed," I replied.

FOLLOW THE SUMMIT TO RECIEVE NOTIFICATIONS OF NEW ARTICLES!