My Weekend on a Flat Earth

Terry from down the street told me that the entire flat Earth is surrounded by a massive wall of ice. The news broke like a rogue ice wave reaching the edge of the earth. It seems that the administration had finally acknowledged that we weren't traveling through space atop a massive, blue marble. Nope, we were lounging on an enormous pancake under the kind light of a massive, constantly changing lamp in the sky.

I'm a sensible guy now. I think a balanced breakfast is important, and I change my oil every few days and floss most of the time. However, is the Earth flat? That just seemed a bit...out of the ordinary. So I did what any dignified internet sleuth would do, and I messaged Terry.

Terry was ecstatic, a man whose passion for cheap fishing lures was only surpassed by his zeal for conspiracy theories. "At last," he scribbled angrily, "the truth is revealed! They are no longer able to disguise it!" He forwarded a link to a forum on flat Earth, where diagrams swirled and swirled, showing Antarctica as the crust of a gigantic pizza (because, presumably, no one down there loved anchovies).

I clicked, intrigued. The opinions represented in the forum were a colorful tapestry, from the "the government is spraying us with mind-control chemicals" camp to the remarkably composed "we just prefer a simpler explanation" camp. I laughed for hours at one really comprehensive piece called "How Gravity Doesn't Exist (and Why Cats Always Land on Their Feet)".

Equipped with this acquired understanding, I ventured into the "real" world. That morning's jog was the first casualty. It felt like a useless idea to jog on a flat Earth. You were jogging, but where? The margin? And in the end, wouldn't you just run in circles? Instead, I decided to go for a quick stroll, feeling rather rebellious for going against the course of, well, nothing.

Even more entertaining was work. Brenda, my cubicle mate, was my first convert to flat Earth; she could out-spreadsheet anyone. She paid close attention as I described how the sun is simply round the flat Earth in an enormous, unseen merry-go-round track rather than truly rising and setting. With a look of startling comprehension, she remarked, "That explains the morning traffic!" But my boss wasn't feeling very thrilled. He gently advised me to stick on TPS reports and let the experts handle the astronomy.

Living on a flat Earth had some unforeseen difficulties. Aircraft? It seems that all they did was fly enormous circles till their gasoline ran out. Are ships vanishing into the distance? a visual trick brought on by...something. The idea of "down under" was especially problematic. Australia simply hung around on the underside of the disc, according to the flat Earth theory. It remained a wonder to them how they coped with constant dizziness and little sunshine.

Dating evolved into a fun dance. When you told a prospective suitor that the moon was a gigantic self-illuminating pizza rock and the Earth was flat, the response was usually a courteous grin and a quick retreat. But there was one woman in particular who was intrigued. With glittering eyes, she questioned, "So, if the Earth is flat, does that mean we can finally fall off the edge?"

I was totally unprepared for this line of inquiry, so I stammered, "Technically, but it's probably a bad idea."

That entire story of the flat Earth, however, was crowned by the "Great Flat Earth Experiment." Terry made the decision to drive to the edge in order to demonstrate the flatness of the Earth with a motley group of forum users. They brought camping supplies, a dearth of navigational expertise, and an alarming number of tuna sandwiches. Being a man of reason (and a reasonable automobile owner), I said no to going with them.

Terry reappeared two weeks later, looking apologetic. His car appeared to have just missed being hit by a group of irate geese since it was damaged and covered in bird droppings. "Well?" I questioned, hardly controlling my laughter. "Did you find the edge?"

Terry slumped his shoulders in defeat and moaned. "It turns out that the Earth is incredibly large," he muttered. In addition, there are numerous gas stations."

The flat Earth movement vanished as fast as it emerged. The "flat Earth" denial was never formally withdrawn by the authorities (who Terry thought were probably lizard people anyhow), but the mania surrounding it subsided. Brenda returned to her spreadsheets, Terry discovered a new Bigfoot and lawnmower conspiracy theory, and the world, mercifully, went back to spinning.

In retrospect, the flat Earth incident seems like a weird aberration in our shared sense of reason. But it did teach me a vital lesson: sometimes the most straightforward explanations are the most.

Disclaimer: No disrespect to those that believe the earth is flat