Landlocked Blues

Landlocked Blues

He was lying down.

Or at least it seemed like it. The man had his right cheek pressed against the pavement, his eyes were closed, and his limbs were stretched out like a starfish. From the view of any justifiably concerned passer-by, the man merely seemed to be lying down. He wasn't, though.

The man was, in fact, hugging the floor.

It was an awkward sort of hug. It was the type of hug you encountered at reluctantly attended family reunions with distant relatives you'd never even met, let alone enjoy physical contact with. But it was still a hug, and the man had been in need of some compassion. He enjoyed it nonetheless.

He'd been on the floor for a while now, though he couldn't exactly remember how long. It was quite long, he remembered. It began when the fear he'd kept inside became too much for him to handle, though he felt that he had succumbed to it in a very practical way. He was, after all, rather comfortable.

The Earth was a very old thing, he thought, and wondered if anyone else had ever hugged it. The thought flitted around his mind as he adjusted his head so as to be pressing the left cheek of his face down instead. Slowly, he opened his eyes and scanned his surroundings. Most people gave him a confused stare before walking on past him. Others seemed unperturbed, not even noticing the strange sight of a man sprawled right in the middle of a walkway.

The man was puzzled by this. The people around him appeared fearless, briskly strutting the streets and going about their day without even remembering that the Earth was spinning constantly. More than a five hundred miles an hour, he recalled. He couldn't remember the exact speed but it was very, very fast. This book he read said so.

He wondered why no-one else was scared by this. Any second, gravity might stop working or the Earth might suddenly stop like a car braking hard and everyone in the world would be flung off through the atmosphere into space and die. 

Except him. He was safe.

Sighing, the man closed his eyes again and gripped the ground tightly in a tangy mix of fear and anticipation.