How to Fall Off the Edge of the Earth－どうやって地球の縁から落ちるか－

If you didn’t already know, let me tell you how to fall off the edge of the Earth.  Just walk to the edge, and then keep walking. 

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Adapted from the prologue to Terry Pratchett’s novel, “The Colour of Magic”: 

The Great Turtle comes, swimming slowly through space, his huge and ancient shell marked with meteor craters.  In a brain bigger than a city, with thoughts moving as slowly as a continent, he thinks only of the weight on his back.  On his back are the four Great Elephants, forever marching in a circle.  On their shoulders they carry the world.  The world is a huge flat disc. 

For a long time no one on the world knew that they lived on a flat disc, which was carried on the shoulders of four moon-sized elephants, which were carried on the back of a planet-sized turtle.  Then people from a kingdom on the very rim of the world built a large glass box, put some explorers in it, and lowered it over the edge.  These astronauts could then see the Great Elephants and the Great Turtle living under their feet. 

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Some people believe, or at least say that they believe, that the Earth is really flat.  They are called “flat-Earthers”. One flat-Earther died last month in the launch of a home-made rocket.  He was known as “Mad” Mike Hughes, and he was trying to reach a height of 5,000 feet in order to check for himself whether the Earth was flat. 

I am quite happy that the Earth is round.  If it were flat, I might fall off the edge.If somehow one side of the flat Earth were tipped up slightly higher than the other, we would all start tumbling towards the lower edge.  We might have to live our lives tied to trees in case this happened. 

Mad Mike lived in America, and spent about 18,000 Dollars to build his rocket.  If his goal was to prove that the Earth was flat, wouldn’t it have been cheaper and less dangerous to buy a round-the-world plane ticket?


Vocabulary:

the edge of something –the outside limit of something

to be adapted– to be altered or changed; based on an original work

a meteor crater – a round hole in the Earth, planet or asteroid where something from space has collided and left a mark

a continent – a large land-mass, such as North America or Africa

the rim of something – the edge of something round, such as a plate or bowl

to tumble – to fall suddenly, clumsily, or headlong