Now Is Bob

Before birth, a baby turns upside-down in the womb. Architect Robert Simon was thirty-two years old, and about to do the same.

A week into the mall's reopening, a hanging flower light fixture he designed lost one of its petals, killing a child. He received the news the following day before reaching his office, where his desk was already reorganized into a box next to the door.

He and his wife Celeste had recently moved into a house—a celebration of both his position with the firm and Celeste's pregnancy. Now he laid his career to rest in a cardboard box in the attic.

He stared into the box. The top page of his yellow legal pad bore sketches of flowers, and he tore it from the pad, balled it up, and tossed it aside. It landed on the insulation between ceiling joists in the floor. The next page on the pad still held ghostly indentations of flowers.

* * *

Robert spent the rest of that week sleeping on the couch in the living room. When he couldn't sleep he watched TV.

Celeste was as understanding as she could be. She worked as a kindergarten teacher, and when she got home in the afternoon he was usually in the TV-watching phase of his new routine. She'd join him on the couch and hold him, rocking gently sometimes, as she imagined she would with their child.

Even as she rocked him, stroking his hair, his eyes stared blankly at the TV screen. He took his meals on the couch, sitting up, blanket on his lap, TV tray before him. When finished, he pushed the TV tray away from the couch and curled back up, covering his head, listening to the muffled voices through the blanket.

Celeste struggled. Not only was she coming home every day to a living corpse, but her days spent at school were dominated by horrifying visions. The child had been five years old, the age of her students, and it was impossible for her to stand before the class without seeing their little heads being caved in.

Sunday night came. Celeste had been at home all weekend—puttering around the house, reading on the porch, doing what she could to avoid dwelling.

Like clockwork, Robert felt the urge he had every weekend to rearrange the furniture. But instead, he thought of the ceiling joists in the attic, and began a new set of notes and sketches.

* * *

The following evening, when Celeste arrived home after seven hours spent picturing the death of each of her twenty-three students, she collapsed onto the couch and let out a heavy sigh. Her hand rested on the curve of her belly.

Robert no longer occupied the living room, but his dismal aura still clung to the blanket curled next to her.

Then he appeared in the doorway with his eyebrows raised. "How was school?"

"Okay," she said, not trying to sound convincing.

"I have something to show you that'll turn that frown upside-down." He giggled.

Despite their miserable week and her relief to find him in what seemed to be a more elevated mood, the giggle was off-putting. But she was curious. "Okay. Show me." She got up with another heavy sigh.

Robert walked her down the hall to the closed office door. "Ready?"

"Mm-hm."

He opened the door and waited for her to enter first.

She did. After a couple of steps, clearing the doorway and looking around the corner, she halted and gasped, quickly stepping back. "Jesus, what the fuck?"

"Isn't it crazy?" He giggled again.

She stayed close to the wall, staring up at the ceiling, to which Robert had attached his desk, chair, and floor lamp, all upside-down, creating the illusion that the ceiling was actually the floor. The ceiling wasn't high; the surface of the desk came down to a mere foot above her head.