#9

At this point, she had no reliable way of knowing how long it had been since they had started falling.  Of course, she knew as she thought these words that, if anyone had been there to hear her, they would have corrected her.  They had not fallen, they would tell her.  They had "launched."  She knew now, naturally, that this was a lie.  This was the lie people told themselves, the lie that made sense with the lie of "earth" and "sky," of "up" and "down."  Alice knew better.