An metaphysical short story by I.M. Gerhi
Way Up Here is a haunting, introspective short story about isolation, memory, and the passage of time. Set in the high reaches of a stadium, the narrator sits alone in a familiar seat, observing the ebb and flow of the crowd—yet never quite catching the moment of change. As the game unfolds below, details blur: the sport itself, the players, even time seem distant and unimportant.
The only constants are the sun in his eyes, the search for a hot dog vendor, and the empty space where seat 13 should have been. With a dreamlike, almost eerie detachment, the story explores themes of loneliness, disconnection, and the strange ways in which memory falters.
Read a sample:
Sometimes the stands are full. People are packed in regulated layers of shouting flesh. The curvature of the stadium filled with a writhing mass of humanity.
When this happens, a wave can make it all the way around the stadium in one minute and fifty-nine seconds. Always one second short of two minutes. One hundred and nineteen seconds.
Sometimes, such as now, the stands are more than half empty. The stadium sounded hollow with an intermittent lone cheer.
I can see sections of seating clearly demarcated in faded blue and red. The scraps of humanity bundle together, marring the rhythmic pattern of the seating.
There is a moment between. One moment the stadium is half empty, the next filled. I never catch that moment.
…end of sample
Way Up Here © I.M. Gerhi
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