The Sky Goes On Forever

Everybody knows that the atmosphere is finite, and that at some point, air practically ceases to be breathable, practically nonexistent.

However, a long time ago, I was reading the Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh. In one of the books, it is pointed out that before the arrival of humans to the Atevi world, it was common belief among the Atevi people that the sky went on forever.

Well, they had it partly right.

However, how often did we think of the sky the same way as children?

I know I did, and revisiting the thought was intriguing. Imagine you could fly a boat to Venus or Jupiter?

Imagine, if you will that the blue went on forever. But, I didn't just stop there. I've always been one to play with concepts, and also being fresh off of Ender's Game, I took the notion one step farther. I did it in the back of my dad's pickup as he drove me and my sis home from his house out on 64, near Wyoming.  (The town in Iowa! Not the state.)

There's something about motion that enhances sensations. They say you can feel the earth move if you lie on your back. It's even more true of an illusion if you have something to reference, and a further object in motion, like clouds over the corner of a tall building.

In the back of the pickup, my peripheral vision was blinded to the passing countryside around me, and it wasn't hard to gaze up into the unblemished blue sky and imagine that it did, indeed, go on forever. Then I took a moment and I imagined that my back wasn't on the ground, but that the ground was actually the ceiling to which my dad's truck loosely clung. I imagined that the sky went on forever, and that it was down.

For me, the thought was quite exhilarating. Here I was, barely clinging to the ceiling of the world and that if gravity let go, I would fall, and continue to fall, forever. Or until I ran into something. What's more interesting is the notion that I might still be alive long enough to see the moon up close before I dehydrated, assuming the sky actually went on forever.

What's even more interesting is the fact that we are precariously clinging to the Earth. Our feet are the only points of contact, and the only thing keeping us from being flung out into the stars to meet our demise is gravity.

We are accompanying the ground as it spins along very fast, and should the Earth suddenly stop spinning, centrifugal force would fling us away from the planet even if gravity were still active.

People get disoriented when in free fall? Well, we are used to this perpetual motion, traveling in a particular direction at a constant speed, with some variation based on how fast we travel.

It's a very fascinating thought. Nothing to lose sleep over, but something very real, in spite of my moment of fantasy.