Fable for Parrish Maynard

One day the best dancer in the world lost his gravity. It happened as he was making a leap, and he spent some time bouncing between the ceiling and floor before he managed to slow down. A lot of people were upset; a number of prominent specialists in the theory of general relativity jumped off cliffs, and ballet fans were aghast that the dancer's carreer had ended so abruptly and bizarrely. For he could no longer dance - he couldn't run across a stage or jump or even stand still if there was the slightest draft. He locked himself up in a studio and sat in mid-air scowling. But after a while, being the best dancer in the world, he realized that even drifting above the floor he could still dance - and he stretched out his limbs and danced a strange new dance, his body never moving but twisting and turning as if pinned at the center of the universe. Then suddenly his gravity return - tripled. He crashed to the ground and was barely able to even lift his head. The ballet world was once again horrified, and the remaining general relativists took to drink. But the dancer was very strong, and he learned a slow, painful dance; at its climax he stood upright. This cycle of disasters and overcoming repeated over and over until no-one was interested anymore. The dancer stayed in his studio, learning how to dance when the floor shook violently under his feet or a gale force wind blew continually in his face. He even began to look forward to the next impossible challenge. This went on for years, until finally he was no longer as strong or fast as in his youth, and some young dancers surpassed him; then the impediments stopped. The dancer was old - his knees hurt, his back muscles spasmed, his reflexes were slow. Yet all this was but another obstacle to be overcome. Some people, seeing him dance, said he was still the best in the world, but they were probably just being sentimental.