My Dad and the Flat Earth

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My Dad and the Flat Earth

Today my father tells us the earth is flat. He sits us down, the five of us, sits us down on the couch in the living room and tells us the earth is flat. It's not like he says, "Boys. The earth is flat," and then walks away. It's not like that at all. What he does is he takes the time to explain it to us. Even gives us visual aids. His hands become the earth. With his hands out before us he shows us the exact shape of the earth. It's not flat, really, but saucer shaped. Almost bowl shaped. He shows us with his hands. His fingers bend up slightly and his thumbs bend in towards each other, so that his hands make a kind of bowl.

"Where do we live?" my oldest brother Sam asks.

"Here," says my father. "in the bowl."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he says, with total confidence. "Look." He starts pulling his slightly cupped hands upward towards the ceiling, slowly. He doesn't say anything as he performs this move. He wants us to watch it for a while. He doesn't look at his hands, he looks at us. Our reaction. We don't react.

"This is how the earth moves," he says. "it travels constantly upwards."

"Upward?" says Len, my other older brother.

"Yes. Upward."

"Towards what?" It's me asking this time. I figure it's my turn to speak. My father looks at me for a moment and I think he's angry. I'm sorry I asked the question. Then this weird smile comes across his face and I'm not sorry anymore. Now I'm nervous. About my father. The thought occurs to me that my father has lost his mind and that this strange half-smile is the half-smile of a madman.

"That's a very good question, Rand."

"It is?"

"A very good question. It shows you're using your mind."

"Losing my mind? Why?"

"Using," she says.

"Oh. Using."

"The earth travels upwards but it's not important where."

"It isn't?" I was confused. He had just said that it was a good question, now he seemed to be saying it wasn't.

"No," he answers. "What is important is what the earth moves in relation to.

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