It began at exactly 9:03 a.m. on a Thursday, which was inconvenient because most people were still halfway through their first coffee. TARITOTO Without warning, gravity decided to take the day off. Not completely, of course — it still worked on coffee cups, paperweights, and cats — but it politely ignored everything else.
Morning Adjustments
I woke up to find my slippers floating near the ceiling. My toothbrush drifted lazily in front of the mirror. The goldfish in my bowl was confused but politely refrained from commenting.
Outside, people were slowly bobbing down the street, clutching lampposts to stay grounded. A man in a suit drifted past my window holding a briefcase full of sandwiches. I asked him why. He replied, “You never know when lunch might happen,” which, in retrospect, was an excellent point.
The news anchors on TV were strapped to their desks with seat belts, speaking calmly about “temporary gravitational inconsistencies.” The weather forecast was optimistic: a light breeze from the east, a 40% chance of socks escaping laundry baskets.
The Floating Market
Around noon, I decided to visit the Floating Market — which, to be fair, was usually just a normal market but had rebranded for the occasion. Stalls were tied down with rope, and merchants wore ankle weights like it was a new fashion trend.
I bought a bag of peaches from a vendor who insisted they were “anti-gravity ripe.” She tossed one to me, and it floated gently into my hands like it had been practicing ballet. Payment was tricky because coins tended to hover just out of reach. The vendor had a long stick with a magnet at the end for retrieving them.
Across the aisle, a man was selling umbrellas “for downward use only.” I asked him what that meant. He winked and said, “You’ll see,” before handing me one in exchange for a jar of strawberry jam I hadn’t realized I was carrying.
The Park in the Sky
By mid-afternoon, people had given up on resisting and simply floated into the air. Children chased drifting kites that no longer needed wind. Dogs barked from below as their owners hovered above, dangling leashes like fishing lines.
I ended up in the Sky Park — a place that normally didn’t exist but had spontaneously formed among the clouds. There were picnic blankets tethered with string, musicians playing guitars that sounded slightly out of tune in the thin air, and an ice cream stand operated by a man wearing three hats for no discernible reason.
The ice cream didn’t melt, which was a bonus, but it did occasionally drift out of the cone if you weren’t careful.
The Meeting With the Mayor
Around 3 p.m., the mayor appeared, floating in a dignified but slightly wobbly manner. He held an emergency meeting right there in the sky, explaining that gravity had simply “gone to visit its cousin in another dimension” and would probably return before dinner.
When asked what would happen if gravity didn’t come back, the mayor shrugged and said, “Then I suppose we’ll have to get creative.” He then floated away to cut the ribbon at a new midair bakery.
Strange Side Effects
As the day wore on, some peculiar things began to happen.
Time seemed slower, as if it too was unsure whether to fall forward.
Birds stopped flapping their wings entirely and just… hovered.
People’s hair behaved as though underwater, swaying gently no matter where they moved.
I tried to take a nap, but sleeping while floating is surprisingly difficult — you tend to drift into walls or ceiling fans. I woke up tangled in my own bedsheets, slowly rotating like an awkward satellite.
The Return of Gravity
At exactly 6:48 p.m., gravity returned. Not gradually — it slammed back into place like it had been running late for an appointment. Peaches fell. Hats fell. A man’s entire chess game fell into his soup.
The Floating Market landed with a series of gentle thuds, except for one stall selling helium balloons, which simply kept going upward until it disappeared. The Sky Park dissolved instantly, depositing picnickers onto grassy lawns far below.
No one was hurt, except for one unlucky guy who’d been napping in a hammock strung between two clouds. He woke up in his own backyard, very confused but still holding an ice cream cone.
Aftermath
The next day, everything was back to normal — except for the fact that people kept looking up at the sky as though expecting to float away again. Some claimed to still feel lighter, like gravity hadn’t completely finished the job.
The mayor declared the day a new holiday: Levity Thursday. Shops sold commemorative ankle weights, and schoolchildren wrote essays titled What I Did When the Ground Forgot Me.
I kept my “downward use only” umbrella. I’m not sure when I’ll need it, but I have a feeling gravity might take another day off someday. And when it does, I’ll be ready — with peaches, an umbrella, and maybe even my floating goldfish.