UPSTAIRS

You want to know what's upstairs?  First you gotta know what's downstairs.

Downstairs was just that.  Downstairs.  The living room had a sofa, TV, you know, living room shit. The kitchen had kitchen shit, and the bedroom was exquisitely adorned with all manner of fine bedroom shit.

This is to say that if you was to come calling at any time of day or night, and upon doing so were granted entry by the occupant, it would appear to you that you were in a large, beautiful home in a gated community.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  You feel me?

You might even stay awhile, take a swim in the pool, have a bite to eat.  All would be as it should be and  you would depart having no suspicions about the home you had just visited.  You get in your car, the gates at the bottom of the driveway swing wide, and off you go down that windy mountain road, eventually making your way back to your own much smaller, but equally unremarkable home.

You'd go about your business doing whatever it is you do and about a week later, you are eating a sandwich and your mind begins to wander and you think about the sandwich you had eaten at The House.  You smile as you remember how beautiful a home it was and then...there was something.

It was faint.

It was so faint that it took your brain a week to assign it enough importance to qualify for only the most fleeting of thoughts...

...so faint that you almost didn't hear it at all.

But, you did.  Hear it.

And now comes the question that took seven days to form.

You envision yourself, back at the house, sitting at the butcher-block kitchen table, eating a Boar's Head Saulsalito turkey with avocado on rustica.  Your host has excused himself and you sit alone, eating your sandwich while looking out at the pool and beyond to the city and beyond that to the mountains.  That is when you hear it.  And that is when you ask yourself,

"What is that hum?"

You cast your eyes toward the ceiling as you strain to listen harder, but it is barely perceptible.  Your subconscious is just about to make a list of possibilities - air conditioner, fish tank, Jacuzzi (all wrong), but before your unconscious mind has the chance to perform this task, your host has returned.

He smiles.

"How's the sandwich?"

He is so disarming that your suspicions evaporate like ether.

"It's delicious."

You forget the hum until you remember it a week later.

But of course all of this would only have transpired if you had been invited in.

And that.  Would never.  Happen.

* * *

GRAVITY

I do the same thing every time.

The same, exact steps in the same exact order, for years.  So many times.

How many times?

How many times have you made yourself a sandwich?  Or got dressed for work?  Or taken your dog for a walk?

Same way every time.

I've been sick.  I've been late.  I've been angry.  Still...same routine, like my life depends on it.  Because it does.

We all jump at once.  They are elated or terrified.  Laughing or crying.  Sometimes they panic, but Ray or Angela or Tony always calm them down.  It's a gift they all have, especially Angela.  I do not have that gift.  My gift is my ability to capture the moment, and I do it every day right after I follow those same steps in that same order, day after day.  Week after week.  Year after year.  Except today of course.

It sounds boring, but I assure you it is not.

Falling.

They fall.  I fall with them.  I record everything.  The smiles.  The wave.  The "thumbs-up".  Then suddenly - very suddenly, they are gone and I am falling alone.  Then there is only wind.  And earth.  And me.

As it is now.

I've experienced a couple of failures over the years.  I followed procedure without thinking -  automatic - and I lived to tell the tale.  But this... this is...embarrassing.

Fuck!  How could I fucking forget?!  Jesus!  So stupid.

Ready for some irony?  Guess what I was thinking about when I was skipping the most important step.

Regret.

Ain't that a bitch.

That's about all the time I have to beat myself up.

This is gonna be a real drag for a lot of people...that girl that works at Dunkin' Donuts that was waiting for me to ask her out...Ray, Angela, Tony.  Mom.  Sorry, Mom.  Christ, today's students are all gonna be scarred for life, especially Carrie, floating somewhere above me.

Wow.  This is taking longer than I would have thought.

Here comes the ground.  I hope it doesn't hurt too much.  I guess I get to see where you go.  I'm going to be OK.  I really wish I'd asked that girl out.  She seemed