The Weight of the World

The Weight of the World

From A Bedtime Story by Matthew Mitchell

April 27, 2026 · 6 min · Season 2 · Episode 38

About this episode

In this episode, Matthew Mitchell introduces the story of Cletus Vance, a private investigator in a city where gravity behaves unusually.

Visit the “A Bedtime Story” show website to submit your story ideas for a future episode! Welcome to A Bedtime Story. I'm Matthew Mitchell, and tonight's story is titled The Weight of the World, Part 1 of this week's series: The Case of the Vanishing Gravity. Cletus Vance was not the kind of private investigator who walked down rain-slicked alleys with a collar turned up against the wind. Mostly because in Orbit City, it rarely rained, and when it did, the water tended to fall upward before deciding which way was actually down. Cletus preferred his office, which was located on the forty-second floor of a building that leaned slightly to the left, much like his own moral compass on a Friday afternoon. His office was filled with things that didn't work, including a coffee machine that only produced steam and a clock that ticked in reverse. He spent most of his days watching the city from his window, observing the flying commuters and the occasional stray balloon that had escaped a birthday party. He was currently staring at a fly that seemed to be having a mid-life crisis on his desk when the door creaked open. Or rather, the door opened, and a woman drifted through the top half of…

People in this episode

Host: Matthew Mitchell

Topics covered

  • fiction
  • gravity
  • mystery
  • investigation
  • Orbit City

Keywords

  • bedtime story
  • Cletus Vance
  • Beatrice Thorne
  • Orbit City
  • gravity
  • mystery
  • fiction

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