The Big Pine Retail Colony, perched nine kilometers above the Big Pine Nebula, was currently upside down.
A screwball gravity glitch had flipped the floor with the ceiling, leaving Ryan Random dangling precariously from the fronds of a decorative plastic palm tree.
“I feel a downward spiral coming on,” Dover moaned from above, his escalator treads flapping uselessly against the sky-mural. “And for once, it is literal.”
Ryan adjusted his baggy security cap, trying not to look at the three-hundred-foot drop into the skylight. “It is just a perspective shift, Dover! Think of it as a promotion to the penthouse!”
Mr. Meankinder drifted past, his three heads spinning like a top. “Fix the gravity, Random!” Mr. Mean bellowed. “Or I will deduct oxygen from your paycheck!”
Mr. Kind blew a kiss, while Mr. Er tried to eat a floating stapler.
Nebula Norris backflipped through the zero-G food court, her third arm juggling slushies from McDopplers. “Hey Ryan, want a brain freeze to go with that vertigo?”
Ryan grabbed a passing Wormhole-Mart shopping cart, using it as a rudder. He slammed the emergency reset button with his flashlight. Gravity returned instantly, dropping five thousand alien shoppers—and Ryan—directly into a giant vat of Discount Dimension Dipping Sauce.
“At least we are well-seasoned,” Ryan joked, treading honey mustard.
(This story was created by an earthquake on July 7, 2026. Magnitude of: 2.48. 9 km NE of Big Pine, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/nc75391211)
