The Weight of Gravity
by Cortney Philip
FICTION

They sent us to farm, told us the verdant soil on our island colony could feed the world. All we needed to do was plant and wait. So we planted and waited. That big looming sun coaxed enormous fruits from the trees. And the crops grew tall and skinny, no need to groom the rows, cornstalks yanked from the soil into fast maturity as if the island rejoiced in spitting up grain. That's because the gravity was all wrong out there.

Juniper Carmichael spent her days tossing a tennis ball at the south wall of the colony compound. Kuh-thump, kuh-thump went the tennis ball, hour after hour. If Mrs. Carmichael called Juniper in for dinner before she was done with her game, Juniper pegged the ball at Mrs. Carmichael's legs, leaving stinging welts. One day, Juniper tossed the tennis ball at the wall as she always did, an easy lob, and it went flying up toward the sun. Into the sun, probably. She sat and waited, but it never came back down.

Wesley Stefano took his poodle Desmond for a walk around the inside of the wall every night. They were often seen together in the fields wearing matching bandanas and, on the evening of Desmond's disappearance, they sported matching rhinestone collars. At the exact moment the sun sank beneath the top of the wall, Desmond's paws left the grass. Wesley jumped and jumped, but ultimately had no choice but to stand there and watch as Desmond floated slowly upward, legs pedaling through the air as if he dreamt of running. Wesley wore that rhinestone collar for days as he scanned the sky, hoping for Desmond's return.

The rest of the colony caught on to the truth of these tall tales when the mice went away. The rodents populating the fields and eating out of the granary like tourists at a buffet suddenly disappeared, leaving the farmers and their families surprisingly nostalgic for their midnight rustling. The night silence that replaced the nocturnal foraging and mating drove some of the farmers' wives to madness, prompting the addition of a psychological wing to the colony's infirmary.

After the Nakamoras lost baby Hoshi by leaving him in his swing in the yard, parents began putting weights in their children's shoes to keep them close to the ground. It became fashionable to wear bricks and planks of wood around the neck and many a farmer profited from the side-business of creating larger and heavier adornments. Still, it was a somber time for the colony and we all lost something. Everyone learned the hard way if the housecat got out there was no point in making flyers. Ten to one, Fluffy was on a one-way trip up.

For a farming colony, though, the initial profits outweighed the risks. Never mind the gravity, they told us, you are the world's new breadbasket. Impoverished nations have come to rely on you. Global warming, rampant pollution, extinction of countless plants and animals? No big deal, as long as you keep farming.

We tried our best, of course. Who would want to disappoint the entire third world? We waited to admit that the gravity got unmanageable only when it started taking our farm equipment. First hoes and rakesÑkid stuffÑbut then tractors and ploughs went soaring into the stratosphere. People got discouraged, depressed, were afraid to leave their houses. When people gave up completely, they removed their weights in the middle of a field, between tall rows of wheat or corn where no one could see what they were doing. We called those folks "jumpers," but really, they just had to stand and wait to get pulled up into the sky.

To cut down on loss, the Agrarian Council shipped tarps to erect over concentrated areas to catch our lost livelihoods. Those blue flapping tarps took the place of sky over our homes and fields. Twice a day men in brick-pocketed jumpsuits scaled the tarp cables with grappling hooks and netted in the catch.

This worked for awhile, but the tarp looters ruined it for everyone. We used to be able to say, "That little red wagon belongs to my boy," but fights broke out because not everything lost got found up there. The tarp looters cashed in on our growing greed for new stuff; they'd sneak up in the dark and sell their winnings outside the wall before sunup. The bravest of them all started calling himself Pirate Pete and he would fly up with nothing but a rope tied around his ankle and staked to the ground. He only brought down the shiny things, like wristwatches and wedding rings, leaving the clunky tools and squealing pigs for the amateurs.

In the end, they pulled the plug on our little colony, shipped us all home. The way things were going, I'm surprised we didn't have more jumpers. I guess we knew the end was coming soon, anyway.

Back home, it hasn't been so easy getting readjusted, especially for the children born on the colony. We get tired easily because our bodies feel heavier. We still store things in high cupboards and tie our dogs to boulders. Because we haven't adjusted to the weight of gravity, when we drop our keys or lose our library cards, we automatically look toward the sun.