Chpt1. Would we fly off the Earth if gravity stopped working?

In the city of London, in the borough of Lambeth, in the town of Streatham, in the road of many houses, in the one numbered 47, in the top floor window, contained the world-the world of Jeremy.
It might seem like an insignificant place to everyone else, out of all those places to choose from, out of all that space in the world, and in space, but it was everything to him-where he lived, where he breathed, where he laughed, where he stayed up late trying to guess what emergency service vehicle was making the siren noise. It was where he thought.
If you asked Jeremy how small his world was he would say it was even smaller than that room, it was all in his head. He often thought there was a little man in there (like the one from Men in Black) controlling his movements while looking through his eyes like he was looking through a cars wind mirror.
Obviously this little room wasn't his entire world; he did leave it from time to time. But like anyone that spends so much time in one place and over years has so much happen to them in it-it became a sort of attachment to him-his head! So if you ever looked down from a space ship to that city of London, that borough of Lambeth, that town of Streatham, in that road, and spotted Jeremy’s window out of all those thousands you would see gleaming around, you'd think it was pretty insignificant; but to him, that room was a piece of his world, and more importantly, his life was all in it.

On this particular night, if any space ship controller had looked into the world of Jeremy, they'd have seen him watching a program on BBC2 about a murder that happened in New York City during the 1960's. The case was about a young lady called Kitty Genovese. Jeremy had been to New York, three times-once on holiday, once to watch the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Socks in the World Series, and once on a business trip when he worked for Sony. He was planning another trip soon to visit a girl he'd met online; she said she was a model but he didn’t believe her-he was drifting in and out.
He didn’t always find it easy to sleep, he'd have the most random thoughts run through his head at such speed that it would cause the heart rate of his brain to pick up fast, meaning he couldn't sleep-instead he’d just lye there starring at the ceiling. If anyone had seen him lying there they’d most likely assume that there lay a man still as anything, quiet and at peace; but if they were able to open up those eye lids and ask the little man what was occurring, he would say ‘it’s like a war zone in here, thoughts flying all over the place, no room to hide’-like constant mayhem in the middle of a busy city. The random thoughts were no different to what he’d normally be thinking about during the day, but for some reason, in the darkness of night, with no other sounds or sight (except the occasional siren) his mind would go doolally.
As a point of reference, an example to show, one night ago he was again finding it hard to sleep. He wondered, how hard can it be? Just lie down, close your eyes and I should fall asleep. He'd seen somewhere that people tried counting sheep jumping over a fence; so he tried it himself. The white sheep jumping over a wooden fence in a green field on a sunny day, it's a typical scene for this type of thing. Did it always have to be like this, could you make it whatever you wanted, be completely, but not totally random? Let’s change the sheep to black tyres, thought Jeremy. And why have them jumping over a fence, how about a tennis net? So now we have car tyres jumping over a tennis net in a green field; but why do they have to be there? Let’s put them in a woman’s lingerie section in a department store, and instead of people hanging around there’s statues of the Greek King David and balls of water jumping up and down on the floor. He needed to sleep.

When he wasn't night dreaming while awake, he thought. Jeremy had a lot of time to think. He didn’t have a “proper” job, or a girlfriend, but volunteered in a charity shop three times a week and had a cash in hand job delivering flyers through people's letter boxes. Like I said, he had no girlfriend-unless you counted the many mini relationships he had with women throughout the day on the street, on the bus, or his favourite- the tube.
They were perfect for what he was after; everything that mattered in a relationship all within sometimes less than 10 seconds. He'd spot a girl and she'd spot him. If they starred for anything up to and beyond three seconds, it was game on. The instant attraction was there-they clearly liked each other. Over time they both decide to start seeing each other, that is, they continue to glance at one another-usually when they felt the other wasn’t looking. They maybe even exchange a few smiles; its fun at first, but as time goes on the relationship sours.
They look at each other less and less, and other men start getting in the way-usually holding the broadsheets. When it finally comes time for them to go their separate ways, it’s so hard-he can’t even look at her! These are the bad ones though; he'd usually try and make things better straight away, hunt down another girl to stare at. It was brilliant; it had all the good things in a real relationship, but none of the ugly messy stuff. It was just good to know someone liked him; that’s all that matters in proper relationships anyway, isn’t it?
He loved it most on the tube because when they got off, he was always sure to ride past them again and have one final stare. On buses they always just disappeared into busy streets. If he was having an extremely lucky day, he could fall in love on the escalator. He'd spot the girl, she'd spot him, they were locked onto each other. A smile, maybe, a head turn, always. Then, just carry on the journey safe in the knowledge that he'd just had a lovely mini relationship with no mess, no fuss, just love.
*
It wasn’t even on-the TV that ‘the poor lady down the road’, as she was referred to by others that lived down the road, was staring at around 1 in the morning.
For no particular reason other than-it just feels about that time-Dawn stood up slowly wearing the dressing gown she donned to sit on the couch most nights. With small shuffling steps she kicked past the mess lying once still on the floor. She was what you’d call a hoarder, or messy, or lazy, or un-bothered-or all of the above. Having a house in such a state was easier sometimes-she never had to worry about cleaning up when she was tired or putting things away when she didn’t want to.
She looked neither happy nor sad or anywhere in between. She just looked empty; out of touch with the world. She got upstairs, slowly, and went to bed. Another thing about her laziness was the amount of time she saved; not changing clothes regularly when she got up or went to bed meant she could just slip in every night as she'd gotten out of it the afternoon before.

In the black of night, lying in bed, she felt the fear. Her head wasn’t ready to go to sleep yet, that would be too easy. It was hard for her to fall asleep so easily at night because she’d done so little during the day to ware herself out; watching Countdown didn’t even make her break a sweat. So, she just laid there, for hours sometimes, and most times her thoughts would turn to dread.
She'd think about dying and what it was like. It would scare her to think of suddenly being alive to dead. She’d come to think that she wouldn’t even know she was dead, would she? How would it happen, would it hurt, she thought? It made it easier to think about death when you didn’t have a life to think about.
Thinking these thoughts in the day was one thing; but in bed by yourself, in the dark, in an empty house, on a quiet street where everyone thought you were weird, in a town where few knew her name, in a borough where no one seemed to care, in the cold city of London; it made it all the worse.