14th
When Matthew Leary jumped from the balcony on the fourteenth floor he thought perhaps he’d bounce back up to the party. Or perhaps that was the LSD thinking. Either way, there he was, careening towards the mist-soaked lower Manhattan street one lively Saturday night. He couldn’t understand why Beth was screaming. Surely she knew the ground was rubber. Surely she knew he’d be back in a moment. He’d have to come back eventually if he was going to propose next week.
10th
He was glad to be facing the ground; he didn’t want to look at her. Her eyes were too awful to look at when she was screaming. His positioning would also make it easier to see the ground smash beneath him. He’d been a fool to think it was rubber before when it was so obviously glass. Do you see how shiny it is? Of course it would break under his weight; 180 pounds of flesh trumps tinted glass every time. He might get cut up a bit, but he would continue falling.
6th
But why would he want to keep falling? He didn’t want to keep falling. He would do something else. Fly away, perhaps? Yes, he would turn into one of those gliding squirrels and just fly away. He practiced flapping his wings but soon remembered that squirrels never flapped their wings. Perhaps instead he would land like a cat. Cats never die, do they?
2nd
He remembered his passionate dislike for anything feline. He would not land like a cat–that was a completely despicable notion. He’d just have to bend his knees and land the right way.
1st
“Shit,” he thought.
Doug Paul Case studies writing, literature, and publishing at Emerson College, where he currently serves as assistant poetry editor of The Emerson Review. This is his first published short story.
A new and interesting story is posted every day.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed! (what is rss)
Don’t miss another story! Subscribe to Every Day Fiction via RSS.
11 Responses to “FACING THE GROUND • by Doug Paul Case”
Comments
« THE APPRENTICE • by Milton T. Burton | Home | A NEAR BUST • by John L. O’Quinn »
August 10th, 2008 at 2:12 am
I enjoyed this, Doug. Unusual, funny, dangerous, and sad. Got four stars from me.
August 10th, 2008 at 3:25 am
This was a breath of fresh air. I liked the idea.
August 10th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Loved it!!! The beginning pulled me right in, and I really enjoyed the story structure and the voice of the piece. Funny and riveting. Great job!
August 10th, 2008 at 5:17 am
Really good work. Somehow I wanted him to really fly but no, you stuck to the reality. The way this tapers is such good structuring. A very nice piece of writing.
Oonah
August 10th, 2008 at 8:24 am
Very funny! I liked the structure of “chapters” based on floors. (As a side note, it just goes to show you what happens to cat haters.)
August 10th, 2008 at 9:46 am
Pretty cool. A complete story with beginning, middle, and end all compressed into a few hundred words and a five second time frame.
August 10th, 2008 at 10:21 am
The story is well-written. The fact that a guy on acid would jump off a 14-story building is pretty silly, though. Tripping people are not stupid or mentally incapacitated. Nor do they believe they can fly, or that asphalt is bouncy. You might want to study the drug, and what it does, if you’re going to delve into the world of LSD. PCP–maybe, but that “people think they’re birds” crap is really 1970’s propaganda.
Alcohol I would have bought.
August 10th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Like Kevin said….Ecstasy would be more likely to produce this effect, but only in high doses. I found the story hard to believe
August 10th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
The ending was obvious, but it was fun on the way down.
–dj
August 11th, 2008 at 9:43 am
I enjoyed the structure, too - it was a very good idea, and a fun story.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:53 am
Don’t know much about the effects of LSD, but I liked the story. Funny and creepy at the same time.