O.M.G: Oh My Gravity

In the middle of winter, at 6:00 am on a Friday morning, the blazing yellow sun beat down on No. 2 Silent Place. It was far too close for the likes of London. It was also very strange as England was a country that was always full of rain. There was not a single cloud in the bright blue sky and the very fact that the sky was bright blue in London confused us all. Where did the grey sky go? Why was the sun so large? My family were as clueless and confused as everyone else.

I lay in bed that morning, listening to my Parents’ muffled voices coming from downstairs.

“Patrick,” mum said to my dad. “Come to the window. Look at the sun!”

There was a short pause a long gasp.

“Oh, my,” said dad. “I believe you are correct, Anna. How strange!”

As I listened to my parents speaking, I began to feel curious. What could possibly be strange about the sun?

I stood up out of bed, my bare feet padding softly on the carpet towards my small window. With a thin and steady hand, I moved the thick curtain aside and drew in a sharp breath.

To my amazement, taking up one quarter of the blue sky was the sun. It’s light flooded my room like liquid gold from floor to ceiling. It was painful to look at, yet I stood as still as a statue in front of the large yellow ball, mesmerised by its ginormous size. The heat it threw off was like the heat that came out of an oven or even the heat of an extremely hot bath. It pierced through my window as if the glass were glad-wrap. What in the actual world was happening?

Having closed the curtains to block out the suns powerful rays and heat waves, I looked at the clock which read 6:45 am. It was nearly time to head off to school. I dressed into my 11th grade uniform and ran down the stairs for breakfast, my bulky leather shoes thumping on each step. All the while I thought about what my 17-year-old eyes had just observed and what it all meant.

“Morning, Lovely!” mum exclaimed as I walked into the kitchen. “How was your sleep?”

I tucked a loose lock of dark brown hair behind my ear and frowned.

“Terrible,” I mumbled. “It was far too hot. I woke up, saw the sun and I didn’t know what was going on ... My head hurts.” I pouted as if I had just eaten a whole lemon.

Mum smiled and pulled me into a close hug, kissing my sticky, damp forehead. “Would you like some toast? Or cereal?” She looked down at me with her round blue eyes, her short brown hair falling around her smooth, pale face. I looked exactly like her, apart from the eyes. I had my fathers eyes.

Mum’s thin hands rested on my shoulders and her face smiled in wait for my answer.

Her attempt at hiding her worry was no where near excellent.

“Toast please,” I said and walked into the living room where dad was watching a croquet match on television. The window in the lounge room was covered with lacy white curtains which did absolutely nothing to block out the sun.

“Hi dad,” I said, looking at his tall, skinny body. His thick brown hair sat messily on his head and his square glasses rested on the tip of his large nose. Dad looked up at me with his big green eyes and smiled.

I took a seat next to dad on the soft green couch and rested my head on his shoulder.

“Did you notice the sun, Alex?” dad asked. He and mum both knew my love for space and the things that were in it. They often asked me questions about it, but there was a slight urgency in his tone and a strange look in his eyes... as if he were hiding something.

“Yeah,” I answered. “I did. It was awfully big! The heat is hard to bear, as well.”

That moment, mum came in with my toast, it’s scent filling the room with the sweet smell of strawberry jam and all other things were forgotten. The urgency that dad had possessed earlier vanished as soon as it came.

“Eat it quickly, dear” mum said softly. “You must get to school early today. You have a school assembly that you don’t want to miss. It’s 6:50 a.m. so you have ten minutes to get to school.”

School was a fair way away and mum usually made me head out early so I’d get there in time for the first bell which sounded at 7:00am. Nothing worse than being late to school.

“Yes, mum,” I said.

I ate my toast quickly, said bye to dad hurriedly and ran out the door, kissing mum on the way out.

Outside our large white cottage everything seemed brighter and more painful to look at. The cars reflected the enormous sun and the metal made the heat ten times stronger. The sun shone straight through the green leaves on every tree that lined the street, making them look ghostly, exposing their deep green veins. Everything hurt my eyes.

Half way to school, I felt sweat trickle down my back and on my forehead. I couldn’t quite understand why it was so hot and why the sun looked so close. I was just thinking about reasons as to why this was happening when suddenly my head burst out into an intense pain, my headache getting worse by the second. I screamed out loudly as it caught me off guard and grabbed my head with both hands. The sun seemed to get brighter and a strange feeling in my stomach gave me the sensation that I was upside down. Then it all stopped.

“What in the world?” I mumbled to myself over the pain ringing in my ears. I hunched over and drew in a few deep breaths. “Shake it off. It’s probably nothing. Just forget it. C’mon Alex.”

I shook my head and kept on walking down the deserted street all the way to school. No one was out in this heat. The only reason I was out walking to school was because my parents never learnt how to drive. How helpful!

I listened to the far away birds high up in the trees and tried to forget the piercing headache and incredible heat that was planning to ruin my day.

What is happening? I’ve never had a headache that bad before, I thought to myself. This is too strange.

I rounded the corner, then, and made my way through the thick, black, metal gates of my school. It was called The Scientific High School For Gifted Children.

My parents enrolled me into this school the minute they laid eyes on it, around two years ago. No other school in my life time had special science programs, so I was home schooled for most of my childhood which I hated. I was happy though that they found this school. It was the first time I ever wanted to go to school, first time I was actually bothered and the first time I ever made friends.

I walked along the grey footpath towards the tall-standing, sandstone building which was my classroom, dodging the large red ball that came speeding towards me. As the ball hit the ground, it deflated with a sizzling sound and hugged the footpath with its melted plastic body. Not long after, a nearby shrub burst into flames.

I couldn’t help but think I was going crazy.

I had no choice but to forget about it and move on into assembly which I was already slightly late for. It seemed to stretch for hours and it was a long day after that. English, Maths, Art, and Double Science! Each class lasted forever, the seconds stretching into minutes and the minutes stretching into hours. The only class that I bothered taking an interest to was Science. The classroom was small and cramped with the amount of kids in it but it was a well decorated room. Solar systems hung from the ceiling and pictures of the human body were pinned up on the green and orange walls. We even had a skeleton named Charlie, locked up in a glass box at the front of the room. It was a fun classroom to learn in. This friday, we learnt about the sun and how it seemed to be expanding by the day.

Everyone was fascinated, standing at the window ‘oohing’ and ‘ahing’. But when I came along to look at the sun, my head exploded with a terrible pain again and I got that topsy-turvy feeling in my stomach once more. Everyone crowded around me and asked if I was feeling alright.

“I’m fine guys,” I announced, my voice was a little shaky. Then the pain struck up again and as I placed my hand on the glass of the window to stabilise myself, I could feel a tingling sensation crawling towards my finger tips ending in severe heat. It was as painful as an electric shock stretching from my fingers to my brain. It didn’t help that the glass felt the same temperature as the sun. Outside the window, the basket ball hoop caught alight and burnt away into a small pile of ashes on the hard pavement. When the sensation gave way into silence, I fell to the ground, knocking down a table and a chair, absolutely exhausted.

The class screamed.

“ALEX!”

“Are you okay Alex!?”

“What happened!?”

“Oh my goodness!”

“Did you see the basketball hoop?”

“SILENCE!” Mrs. Blue screamed. Everyone closed their mouths immediately, because they knew that if anyone spoke when the teacher told them not to, they were dead. The room was so silent that you could hear a pin drop.

“Mr. Alexander Whitmore,” Mrs. Blue said quietly. “Could you please tell me what all that commotion was?”

There was a short pause...

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Blue,” I replied. “But I really can’t tell you that, because I don’t even know myself.”

The teacher looked at me with deep blue eyes over her half-moon glasses, her short white-blonde hair fell over her shoulder. She tilted her head to the side and gave a tired smile...

“Alex,” she said. “How about you head on home? It’s 3:00 p.m. You only have 20 minutes left of school... You aren’t missing much.”

I glanced around the classroom at all the familiar faces staring at me. Each child nodded their head and pointed to the door. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

I picked up my things from my desk and walked out of the school, stopping to look at the burnt basket ball hoop. I looked back up at the window and saw the faint outline of my fingertips. A thin wisp of smoke snaked up into the air. I frowned and kept on walking.

As I walked home I thought myself, something strange is going on around here. I don’t even know what it is but it sure is freaky. Maybe it’s just a coincidence?