Floorspaces

Larry settled back into the recliner, balancing the deep styrofoam plate in one hand and keeping firm hold of a bottle of beer in the other. He set the plate of chili and nachos on his lap and fished around for the remote, which had of course fallen into one of the easy chair's nooks. Now that he was back from the kitchen, he turned down the volume from ear-shattering to merely loud.
The announcers were doing a slo-mo replay of the touchdown pass he'd just missed. Larry took a sip from his beer and heaped thick, red chili onto one of the chips before shoving it into his mouth. Pete's recipe was the greatest, just the right amount of heat to it.

"Hey Pete!" Larry yelled over the television. "You're missing some awesome shit!" Pissing didn't normally take this long. Where was he?

As if on cue, Pete said, "Larry, I think I fell through the floor."

Larry twisted around in the chair to look over his shoulder. The chili sloshed against one side of the plate and only the barrier of tortilla chips kept it from spilling all over Larry's pants. "What now?"

"I think I fell through the floor," Pete said again. His voice sounded like it was coming from somewhere behind Larry, but he couldn't see Pete anywhere.

"What do you mean you fell through the floor?" Larry asked, shifting back into his seat and turning down the game's volume by two notches.

"I was going to the bathroom and I took a step and then I ended up falling through."

Larry bit down on a chili-covered tortilla chip. It crunched. "So you're in the basement? Fuck, Pete, you know we gotta pay for repairs like that."

"No, I'm not in the basement. I'm not sure where I am."

"But you're sure you're under the floor?"

"That's where I went, but not where I am. I think."

Larry tapped the side of his beer bottle with a finger. "Not making any sense, bro."

"Call Steve, see if he knows what's going on."

Larry took a swig of beer and snorted."I'm not calling that nerd."

"He knows about black holes and Star Wars and shit, don't he? Maybe I went through a black hole."

Larry didn't pay much attention in the astronomy course he'd been forced to take sophomore year (he passed it with a C, only after Coach Hamilton and the provost had a friendly sit-down with the prof), but something about what Pete said sounded wrong. "They're bigger than that, dipshit."

"Dude, if I'm not in a black hole then why's it so dark?"

Larry didn't have a good answer to that, so he ate another chip and changed the subject to something he knew better. "Rumblers got another TD. Kickass play, put it on replay. You want me to just tell you all the highlights while you figure out how to get out of there?"

"Dude, I can't see anything. Fuck the game!"

"Chill, bro. We'll solve this."

"Whoa hang on," Pete said. "I think I see something."

"See? You're not in a black hole."

"Naw, man, there's somebody else up ahead. He's facing away from me. It's weird, he wasn't there a second ago. He keeps getting closer."

"Well, go talk to him," Larry said around another mouthful of chili. He didn't want to put up with any more of Pete's bitching. This game was a big deal. The Rumblers' season depended on it.

"I am! He's getting pretty close. Hey! Hey guy!" Pete yelled. He was louder than the game when he did that. Larry punched the volume button on the remote to drown Pete out.

"He's ignoring me," Pete said. Despite the volume being near max, to the point that the empty beer bottles on shelves lining the living room rattled, Larry could still hear him fine. "Christ, he needs to do something with his hair. When was the last time he showered? And those highlights look like shit. Hey wait a second I'm--HOLY SHIT LARRY SOMETHING'S PUSHING ME FROM BE--"

Pete cut off in a banshee's scream that drowned out everything else. Larry pitched forward, clasping his ears even though it did nothing to stop the icy spikes of pain boring into his head. Chili splattered all over the chair, the carpet, Larry's crotch. His bottle of beer lay on its side next to the overturned plate, its contents leaking from the neck at a slow trickle.

Larry lay like that for a few minutes, his head reverberating as the din slowly subsided. He felt something warm and sticky oozing down the left side of his face. He didn't think it was chili. "P-Pete?" he ventured once the jangling in his brain was reduced to a buzzing white noise and he could hear the game again. He was dimly aware that the Rumblers had just scored a field goal.

Pete didn't answer.

Larry stood up on shaky legs, wobbling from side to side. He was dimly aware this is how he reeled when he got really drunk, but this was much less fun than any party he'd ever attended. The carpet was a mess, and he was pissed that he wasted a good half-bottle of beer, and those stains would be hell to get out. Hopefully he could clean it enough that the landlord wouldn't find a reason to withhold the deposit when the lease was up.

As Larry stumbled into the kitchen to fetch a roll of paper towels, he decided that he would call up Steve after all. It could wait until after the game, though.