Slipping into Madness

A2: The Antipathies

Alice believed she would meet these folks who walk with their heads downward if she keeps falling. Write your own adventure of discovering such a place. (<1000 words)

Once upon a moonlit night, I slipped between shadows and suddenly my path was filled with people walking on their hands, heads downward, with little legs curled and crossed so their toes waved in the air, and I was too, with my hands down in little hand sandals and my hair dangling nearly to the ground.

At first I didn't know what to think, but then I knew. This was where my niece, Laurel, lived every day. She was born with bones that weren't complete, a floating pelvis and little legs that had never moved of her own volition. And I stood there on my hands and didn't know how to move or what to do. I was broken without my feet.

I felt my arms tremble and my blood rush into my head and wanted my own world again, where everything wasn't so topsy turvy.

But then, one of the children ran to me on her hands, and smiled. Laurel has the most wonderful smile. Her arms were so spindly that it seemed that they were too little to support her body, but she called to me: Aunt Rhyssa! See what I can do!

She went to a stairway and anchored her left arm on the step up, and used her right arm planted on the step she was coming from to swing her body up to where her left arm waited. And then brought both arms beneath her to prepare to find the next step. She practically flew up those steps on her hands with her head down, and I laughed with her, so happy that she could do it.

I tried to clap my feet, but I lost my balance and fell, and when I did, I landed on my feet again, but Laurel was there still, at the top of the stairs, and I ran on my feet and hugged her, so happy that she could move so well on her spindly arms with her legs and feet that had never worked at all.

My amazing girl.

Word count: 341