Eric Chandler
Hugging This Rock
We’re both down here hugging this rock but when I fly I go faster which means I’m getting younger than you because Einstein’s special theory of relativity says that as I go faster the velocity dilates time and it slows down in relation to those on the surface of the rock (which for your sake would be nice because your misery would pass quicker and my flying would last longer) and I’m grateful because I’ve seen a bunch of cool things up there but unfortunately there’s a price because as I get farther from the rock and experience less gravity Einstein’s general theory of relativity says that my time is actually going faster than the people that are driving down the highway to jobs in cubicles on the rock and I wonder whether I’m younger from flinging myself through the sky at high speed or maybe I’m older because I was vertically separated from my home for three hundred days but I may never know the answer to that question (since I’m not a scientist) although I suppose I could Google some more and figure out which effect is greater and I’d be able to tell whether all this flying gave me more time down here but either way I’ve seen a bunch of cool things up there that I can think about while we’re both down here hugging this rock.
Eric Chandler is a husband, father, and pilot who cross-country skis as fast as he can in Duluth, Minnesota. His work has appeared in The Talking Stick, O-Dark-Thirty, Aqueous Magazine, Great Lakes Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, and Northern Wilds, to name a few. He is a member of Lake Superior Writers. Visit ericchandler.wordpress.com for links to his published fiction, nonfiction, books, and poetry.