Glue

            Rob Pasco was a lonely man.  He enjoyed sitting in large, open places, typing on his laptop, shuffling through his over-sized brief case, and pretending to make various business calls.  This was his entertainment.  This was how he passed the time.

            His father, Joseph Pasco, had started Anthony’s Steak House, a rather popular chain that had over 50 locations on the Eastern seaboard, and had quickly made a small fortune.  He was married to one Wendy Weston, and they lived in a quaint North Carolina town, where Rob grew up.  When Rob turned 22 he graduated from M.I.T. with a degree in chemical engineering.  That year, both his parents passed away in a rather complex boating accident, involving a Boston Whaler, four large sea bass, and a tanker ship – the exact details are still unknown.  This mishap left Rob with a large sum of money.  He was not quite sure how to go about spending and investing it, so he looked for some opportunity to make the fortune even bigger. 

It was a December weekend when he received an e-mail from a fellow M.I.T. graduate, Horace Calary, soliciting interest and resources for a new product that he had just developed.  When Rob asked what the nature of this new product was, Horace simply described it as “the future.”

            Rob flew out to New York from North Carolina to meet Horace.  Horace gave him directions to a hole-in-the-wall strip-club that had some over the top sexual innuendo for a name.  Even though Rob was used to strange situations, he walked into the crowded, dark room with caution.  The air smelled of cigarettes and fake tits, and what he assumed to be the usual crowd of perverts and business-men were scattered through out the whole establishment.  He saw Horace stand up from the bar, who beckoned him over to a seat where a cool glass of beer was sitting, waiting for him.

            Their meeting went on for a long time, due to the outrageous number of beers and lap-dances Horace paid for.  He even offered to buy a few of the latter for Rob, but Rob had politely turned him down.  When Horace finished ranting, the two of them stood up, shook hands, and departed, Rob making his way back to his hotel room.  As he sat in the cab, looking out the tinted window at the enormous sky-scrapers passing by, he began to seriously think about Horace’s product; the strongest, stickiest, longest-lasting glue ever made.  Despite the high cost of production, Rob liked it.  Horace had showed Rob reports of secret laboratory tests designed to see how strong the glue actually was.  Rob was amazed to discover that a fluid ounce of the stuff could hold up as much as a ton.  Horace had advised Rob to take a few days and think over the offer, but Rob had made up his mind, and he gave Horace a call – he was in.

             A few days later, Rob arrived back home in North Carolina to find things just as he had left them.  His house was still standing, his dog still alive, and his friendly neighbors still next door.  He went in his house, and got settled.  He unpacked his suitcase, made himself a martini and a microwave dinner, and sat down on the couch to watch some Jerry Springer he had Tivoed the week earlier.  All was good.  Then, gravity turned off.

* * *

            Rob was sitting in his living room, looking out his window, watching as the sun began to sink behind the houses across the street. He could clearly see the outline of a flailing person slowly floating up towards the sky.  Yet another victim he thought to himself as he turned back to his TV.  He looked around for the remote, checking under the cushions next to him, looking on the side table, and even on the floor.  He then looked up, and saw the grey remote bouncing softly in one of the upper corners of the ceiling.  He hadn’t quite got used to things just floating off, especially since he had managed to glue down most of the furniture in his house with the glue samples Horace had sent him home with.

            He unbuckled the seatbelt around his waist, which he had attached to the couch to keep him in place, and with a small kick he floated up towards the remote.  Reaching out with his left hand, he snatched it up, but kept flying forward and hit his shoulder into the wall with a resounding thud.  The way back down was easier, as he pushed off the ceiling, and hit head first into the couch, a soft and comfortable landing.

            Rob put his seat belt back on, grabbed his can of beans – his staple food over the past few days – and clicked on the TV.  The familiar talking head of the local news-man appeared on the screen, and he began talking about the current crisis.  He talked about how many people had floated off or gone missing that today, how some were dealing with the problem, and new theories about what exactly had happened.  During his sign-off, the anchorman began to slowly float into the air, out of the view the camera, and quickly grabbed the table in front of him and pulled himself back into his seat. 

            Suddenly, there was a knock on Rob’s door.  He slowly made his way over to the door, getting more and more used to pushing off of walls and ricocheting off of soft furniture to get where he needed to go.  He braced himself against the wall next to the door, and turned the knob.  As soon as he started to open the door, he saw a pale hand jut into his house and hold on for dear life.  When the door was fully open, Rob saw his old neighbor, Mr. Seegert, bobbing up and down in his doorway.  Around the man’s waist was tied an old rope, the other end of which Rob could see was tied to the man’s front door, a few houses down the block and across the street.

            Mr. Seegert was clearly distraught.  He told Rob about all the problems they were having; furniture floating around, books coming off the shelves, and any food they tried to eat rising off the plate and hitting the ceiling.  Rob told him to wait right there, and he spun around, planted his feet on the wall, and with one push, he shot down the hall toward the bathroom.  On his way down, he purposely hit his foot against the doorway of the closet, sending himself into spin.  He timed it just right, so that instead of smashing into the closed door, he was able to absorb the shock with his legs, and push off one more time down the bend in the hall, towards his bedroom.

            Once he was inside, he swam towards his bed, and pulled out a small crate from underneath.  He made his way back to the door, cracked open the crate, and handed Mr. Seegert two tubes of the glue Horace had developed, which Rob himself had used to hold down everything in his house.  The old man was more than pleased, and quickly floated back home to secure his possessions.

            The next morning, Rob woke up late, and found an envelope taped to his front door.  Inside was a note from Mr. Seegert, thanking him for the fantastic glue, and wad of money bigger than Rob’s fist.  He counted it out, and found that the old man had left him just over $5,000 in cash as thanks for glue.

            Over the next few days, Rob got more and more knocks on his door, from people wanting to buy some of the glue.  It wasn’t long before Rob had sold all 100 of the tubes that Horace had given to Rob.  Rob grabbed his phone, dialed Horace’s number, and asked for more.

* * *

            It wasn’t long before Rob was a very rich man.  It all started out as a gift to his neighbor, but had quickly turned into a large business.  He had started out by charging $2,000 per tube, which was not appreciated by his customers, but both they and he knew that this glue was now a necessity of life.  Soon, Rob hiked the price up to $3,000, then $5,000, and now he was charging an outrageous price of $10,000 er tube – enough, he claimed, to glue down your entire house.

            Rob had never been good with money, and had never in his life had more than a few thousand dollars and a house to his name.  During his senior year of high school, he borrowed a large amount of money from some less-than-trustworthy people to invest in his friends dot-com venture; a website designed to help people find consolidated and up to date information about colleges all over the country.  The project never got off the ground, partly because of legal issues, but mostly because his friend decided to skip town, and was never heard from again.  Rob had no way of paying back his lender, and skipped out on it until they threatened to kill him, at which point Rob’s parents bailed him out and paid up.

            But now Rob was happy.  This sudden streak of fortune had made him rich beyond his years.  He would sit at home in the evenings, strapped into his couch, and count his money.  He would spread out all his money, putting them in stacks of $100,000, which he rubber-banded and stored in his locked closet.  Sometimes, he let his money float around on purpose, so that he could bounce around his house and find it all again.

            But he wanted more.  His income of over $400,000 a week did not seem to be enough for the money-hungry Rob Pasco.  He took advantage of his needy neighbors and friends, and continued to raise the price of his miracle glue.  People were beginning to get angry with him, and did not mind telling him so.  But he didn’t care.  All he cared about was his money.

            On one particular evening, at the end of an exceptionally good sales day, Rob was on his couch counting his money.  His TV was on, and the sounds of the local news drifted into his ears.  Through his open window, the bright orange sun was setting over the houses across the street, but Rob wasn’t looking.  He sat there, counting out his money, and separating the hundred dollar bills from the fifties and the twenties.  He was relaxed, but the hot summer sun was heating up his house more than he liked.  He put  the money in his hands down on the coffee table, and swam into the kitchen, making for the window just over the sink.  He braced himself, and as soon as he managed to shove the window open, he felt a huge gust of wind blow in past his face.  He turned around frantically, and saw all six piles of money that he had arranged perfectly on the table suddenly jump up and float quickly out his open living room window.  Without a thought, he shot through his doorway and over his couch, and caught the edge of the window.  He quickly poked his head outside, and saw all his hard-earned money floating towards Mr. Seegert’s house.  He quickly climbed out his window.  He planted his feet on the outside of his house, and pushed off as hard as he could towards the trail of floating money.  As soon as he felt his face pushing through the air, he heard a deep creaking noise, followed by the loudest sound he ever heard.  But he wasn’t worried about that.  As he shot forward, arms outstretched, he grabbed all the money he could.  His hands shot out in every direction, snatching bills, and stuffing them into his pockets.  Finally, he reached his neighbor’s front yard, and grabbed onto the post of his mailbox.  He had gotten all but a few of the bills, but he figured it was good enough, and didn’t want to risk getting the ones that were now floating off into the sky.

            As he turned around to shoot back towards his house, he suddenly stopped, and just stared.  Where his house used to be, now there was just a pit of rock and dirt.  He looked up to see his house floating off slowly into the sky, like a large helium balloon, released back into the wild.

            He couldn’t believe it.  His house, his money, and his TV were all floating off towards space.  Not knowing what else to do, he pushed off the ground, doing his best to aim for the open window.  Again he was floating up, but overshot it by no more than a few feet.  He passed his house, and rose up into the summer air.