[I tapped myself out on rewrites today before I got a chance to write a new flash fiction. So I present a bonus fiction to you today instead. This story originally appeared in Leading Edge #45, an issue which I have recently discovered is no longer available for purchase.]

Hansel was sixty-eight when he decided he was tired of being pushed around. He was a victim of the meanest bully ever, The Universe, and at three-sixteen on a Friday afternoon he decided he wasn’t going to take it anymore. He walked right out his back door, across the yard, and straight up to a fist-sized rock against a twig that thought itself a pine tree. There he stood: his hands by his side, his house slippers on his feet and his open work shirt showing his paunch in his fading t-shirt.

“I’m through,” he said. “I’m not playing along any more. Just you versus me, buddy.” He glared at the rock. The rock remained unfazed.

A little over an hour later his wife returned from a friend’s house. She paused in the kitchen to deposit a borrowed corningware on the counter when she sighted Hansel through the window. “What’s going on?” she asked when she got out there. “Perry Mason’s on in a few minutes.”

“Perry Mason can wait,” he declared. “This is important. I’m doing this for everyone. Even Perry Mason.”

“Doing what?”

“I’m standing up. Bullies are really cowards when you stand up to them.”

“Bullies?”

“Lay off already. The Big U. Cocky sunuvabitch. Physics. Gravity and forest fires and thermodynamics and getting old. Bully! Someone has to draw the line somewhere. Enough is enough!”

“Will you be drawing the line much longer?”

“Just let me concentrate,” he grumped.

She knew when to leave well enough alone. Like when they first moved into the house and he decided to build a guest bathroom. It took him three months to give up, but she didn’t call a contractor until he was good and done.

A couple hours later she brought him his dinner on a styrofoam plate. After the stars came out she brought him a good sturdy coat, a hat, and some decent shoes.

“How’s the rock, dear?”

“Getting weaker!” he crowed.

The next morning he was still there. So was the rock.

“Hurry and eat your eggs,” she told him. “They’ll cool off fast.”

“Mmm.”

“How’s the concentrating going?”

“Dozed off this morning. Had to start all over again. Smug little bastard.” He pointed his plastic fork at the rock menacingly, a bit of egg still wedged between the tines jiggling with his resolve.

“How will you know when it gives in?”

“When it moves. You know how the saying goes. I’m staying right here and I’m thinking at it until it gets the message and moves.”

“Well keep me posted.” And she went back inside to crochet.

Later she brought him his lunch and eventually his dinner. She had to hand it to him. He’d stayed out there an entire day.

The next morning he was still there. And so was the rock.

That afternoon he was still there. The rock seemed unperturbed.

Finally, just after five-twenty, Hansel sagged. He was still there all right, but his resolve mushed and he was no longer standing proud. He was tired and he ached. The Universe was not as easily cowed as he’d thought. He’d lost.

He indulged for some small time in self-pity, then slowly turned back toward the house. Not three steps and he tripped, falling squarely on his hands and knees. “Damn gravity!” It took him a minute to get up: his hip hurt more than it used to. He grabbed the stick that had caught his foot and tossed it over the back fence. “You and your damn gravity!” he shouted at a spot in the sky just slightly above and to the left of the Johnson’s house. “Making your own trees fall apart, you big bully! I’ve had it up to here.” he gestured emphatically above his head. “You hear me? Up to here!”

When he turned around, he discovered he was looking at the back of his attic, not his porch. He noticed the eaves could use a good painting before he realized he was floating about eight feet in the air.

“Ha ha!” he gloated down at his nemesis the rock. “Who’s the loser now? Who stood up to gravity and made it back down? Huh? Universe ain’t so tough.”

Ten minutes later he was starting to suspect he was stuck. He couldn’t move up, down, left, right, front, or back. He tried sitting, but it’s hard to sit and float at the same time. Nonetheless, he’d won, and for now that was enough.

“Pork chops or ham for supper?” his wife called from the open back door.

“I did it!”

“I’m so proud of you, dear.”

“May take me a while to get down, though.”

“Take your time. Just mind your hip. I’ll go ahead and start supper. No preference?”

“No.”

“I’ll make pork chops then. I need to defrost the icebox, and they’re the last frozen food we’ve got. Icebox can thaw overnight. Mashed potatoes sound good?”

“Sure do.”

She went back into the kitchen and set some water to boil for the potatoes. She’d have to borrow Sam Johnson’s ladder if Hansel was going to keep taking his meals in the yard. Still, she mused, there were worse fates than being married to a dreamer.

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