6 April 1905


     In this world, it is instantly obvious that something is odd. No houses 
can be seen in the valleys or plains. Everyone lives in the mountains.
    
     At some time in the past, scientists discovered that time flows more 
slowly the farther from the center of the earth. The effect is miniscule,  
but it can be measured with extremely sensitive instruments. Once the 
phenomenon was known, a few people, anxious to stay young, moved to the 
mountains. Now all houses are built on Dom, the Matterhorn, Monte Rosa, 
and other high ground. It is impossible to sell living quarters elsewhere.
     
     Many are not content to simply locate their homes on a mountain. To 
get the maximum effect, they have constructed their houses on stilts. The 
mountaintops all over the world are nested with such houses, which from a 
distance look like a flock of fat birds squatting on long skinny legs. 
People most eager to live longest have built their houses on the highest 
stilts. Indeed, some houses rise half a mile high on their spindly wooden 
legs. Height has become status. When a person from his kitchen window 
must look up to see a neighbor, he believes that neighbor will not become 
stiff in the joints as soon as he, will not lose his hair until later, 
will not wrinkle until later, will not lose the urge  for romance as 
early. Likewise, a person looking down on another house tends to dismiss 
its occupants as spent, weak, and shortsighted. Some boast that they have 
lived their whole lives high up, that they were born in the highest 
house on the highest mountain peak and have never descended. They  
celebrate their youth in mirrors and walk naked on their balconies.

     Now and then some urgent business forces people to come down from 
their houses, and they do so with haste, hurrying down their tall ladders 
to the ground, running to another ladder or to the valley below, 
completing their transactions, and then returning as quickly as possible 
to their houses, or to other high places. They know that with each 
downward step, time passes just a little bit faster and they age a little
more quickly. People at ground level never sit. They run, while carrying 
their briefcases or groceries.

     A small number of residents in each city have stopped caring whether 
they age a few seconds faster than their neighbors. These adventuresome 
souls come down to the lower world for days at a time, lounge under the 
trees that grow in the valleys, swim leisurely in the lakes that lie at 
warmer altitudes, roll on level ground. They hardly look at their watches 
and cannot tell you if it is Monday or Thursday. When the others rush by 
them and scoff, they just smile.

    In time, people have forgotten the reason why higher is better. 
Nonetheless, they continue to live on the mountains, to avoid sunken 
regions as much as they can, to teach their children to shun other children
from low elevations. They tolerate the cold of the mountains by habit and 
enjoy the discomfort as a part of their breeding. They have even  
convinced themselves that thin air is good for their bodies and, 
following that logic, have gone on spare diets, refusing all but the most 
gossamer food. At length, the populace have become thin like the air, 
bony, old before their time.