Upside Down
Author: Ukari (translated with author’s permission, please visit their website to see the original Japanese works!)
To say here is far, and to call yonder nearby. Stories on the edge of the every day, strange tales you may or may not be moved by. Strange, curious, fantastic stories told by me, you, him and her. There are many stories but they’re all concluded within a single page, each story around 200 to 1200 characters in length, a short story collection you can easily read. Please enjoy them. Updated every Saturday at 6pm.
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In general, I’m known as someone who doesn’t get agitated very much. But when I woke up and saw a woman’s face right in front of me, naturally I was surprised.
The woman was upside down.
She was standing on the roof and looking down at me. No, I suppose from her point of view, she was looking up at me.
She was wearing a primp and proper uniform. It had to be a company uniform of some sort. Both her skirt and her jacket seemed to agree with the gravity on her side and weren’t upturned or ruffled in the slightest. However, her hair and her hair alone disagreed and fell down, following the same gravity as Earth. It fell down loosely and curled around my chest.
I had no idea who this woman was. I didn’t recognise her at all. But since we were here like this, I decided to wait and see if she had some sort of grudge or complaint for me.
But she didn’t say a thing. She didn’t even blink, she just stared right at me.
‘If you have something to say, please say it quickly.’
The eyes speak louder than the mouth, or so they say, but of course, I couldn’t tell tell what she wanted from her glare alone.
I washed my face and got dressed, then had breakfast. The woman followed me around the whole time. She didn’t bump into anything, but her hair did drag along the floor and make a sound as it did so.
I thought about telling her off if she let her hair fall on the table as I was eating, but she wasn’t quite that rude.
“If you have something to say, now’s the time. I won’t be back until tonight,” I said as I was getting ready to leave, but of course, she didn’t reply.
She just stood there on the ceiling. I had no choice but to close the door and go to work.
When I got home, the woman was gone.