Gravity (Kiwi Deb Fiction Contest)

Mr. Green is the coolest teacher I have ever seen.

You gotta see his smilin’ face even though I know he has a hard time putting up with me. I’m Terence. I like to think of myself as Mr. Green’s favorite student. I just have a hard time sitting through a whole place. You see it’s not really my fault. I just have a love for nature and science.

You might think these are good qualities but actually I am obsessed with nature and science to the point that I can’t look at things the way normal people do. Just yesterday a bee flew into the classroom and everyone else in the class was screaming. I was more interested in the movement of the bee.

It has been said that a honey bee beats its wings at 200 beats per second. That is amazing because the fastest hip hop beats don’t even get to 180 beats per minute. I had to follow that bee and so I ended up missing part of Mr. Green’s lecture.

Today was supposed to be a better day.

I bought this Monster caffeine drink and I think I’m ready to sit awake for a whole hour of Mr. Green’s physics lecture. The only problem with his physics lectures is that he can’t get out of the 17th century. He talks about gravity as if it is a constant used just to plug into equations to get an answer for a test.

He thinks he is “progressive” but he never bothers to explain why objects move by gravity or even think about asking the question. Judging by the wrinkles on his face I think he is afraid of gravity. He cannot see that gravity is not just a constant but it is actually a result of distorted space time. We kind of just “feel” gravity. It’s so simple to explain.

It’s like when two people get close together. You know that feeling, that special effect, that’s gravity. And as you move away from that person the gravity effect is lessened. I know this when I broke up with my girlfriend last summer. The gravity kind of fizzled out between us.

Now Mr. Green is demonstrating the force of gravity by dropping Tonka trucks off his desk.

I have had enough of this and I’m walking out of the classroom. At times like this Mr. Green allows me to wander around in the halls and even use our science lab freely. He says I can do whatever I want in the lab as long as I make a report at the end of the day.

It is this place where I thrive. I went right up to the chalk board and started working out some equations. I went through everything in our Physics book. This was not enough. The lab computer kept staring at me in the face. I looked up some new equations about the effect of gravity on other dimensions.

I had a hunch that I could alter the objects in our classroom if I could alter the gravitational pull. I thought it would be real cool if I could change Mr. Green’s Tonka trucks into something more like a banana. I have been working a project examining the flow of electrons through certain transistors. Mr. Green let me use all his old computer parts. I would try the same experiment with different types of metals and measure the current with an Ampere. It was simple stuff but I like to record the results.

The lab window was open and somehow that bee flew in again.

I’m sure it was the same bee because of the patterns it moved. I’m fascinated by the dances that these creatures make so I followed the bee. It went down the hall into the janitor’s closet and sat on a rock in the back.

This was the most beautiful stone I had ever set my eyes on. It was like an amethyst crystal but parts of it had a tinge of jade and the back side looked like orange aventurine. It was marvelously intriguing. Somehow I was drawn to this crystal and so was the bee.

I decided to bring it back to the lab. I hooked it up to the Ampere and was getting ridiculous readings. The force of this stone was stronger than any metal I had ever used before. For some odd reason I wanted to see what would happen if I put an even greater charge of electricity through this stone.

Now there is nothing eloquent about my scientific methods.

I hooked up the stone to some jumper cables I found in shop class and gave it a charge. The stone let out an enormous glow and heated up. This was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen in the world.

I felt like heaven was open and calling me in. In a whirlwind I was lifted up and the stone itself was not a stone but had dematerialized into the substance of the whirlwind. I was spinning and couldn’t get a good look at what was going on but I could recognize the whirlwind brought me back to class and the whole class including the Tonka trucks were sucked up into the funnel.

We all stood suspended in a space absent of gravity and time.

Ironically inside the whirlwind everything was quiet and still. There giant trees growing from all directions. You couldn’t tell what were the roots and what were the branches. This was a mysterious place. I forgot about the lab and forgot about school.

It seemed like I was always in this forest from the beginning of time. I felt like a feather and it was like waking up from a long dream. I didn’t even recognize Mr. Green and he didn’t recognize me. It was an awkward meeting. He asked me, “Who are you?” I answered, “I don’t know.” He asked me, “How long have you been here?” I answered, “I’ve always been here.” He said, “That’s impossible. I’ve always been here and now I met you for the first time.”

That’s when we saw the Tonka trucks and began to remember.

We said together, “The lab.” Our whole physics class was swept up in the whirlwind. One by one these dreamy teenagers began to realize they were in a world with no time and no gravity.

On one hand this was great. There was no homework here and no boring lectures. Everything was completely free. There were small ponds of water that just aimlessly floated by. Fruits were everywhere and the fruit of this world was extraordinary. I could stay there forever.

On the other hand Mr. Green and 26 high school students missing would give panic to the whole school and maybe to the whole world. Even if we wanted to there would be no way to leave this place.