Rainbow Road [Super Mario Bros.]

11

The water park looked dicey to Luigi: from a distance, it didn't look like the ladders, fountains, pools, and water slides were attached to the the satellite functioning as it's hub, so instead they made for a simple photography shop where they could get some of Luigi's pictures printed.

Just getting to the shop was an adventure of its own. They kept walking until they reached a turn-off from the Road, an extension into open space like a glass knife. At the end of this precipice as another circular platform, like at the overlooks, only instead of telescopes rimming the edge, there were banks of computers with big screens. They appeared to be directories, explaining which satellite shop was incoming, and when the others were due to arrive.

Luigi approached one screen and saw that it said: APPROACHING IN 00:3:23, LUMINOUS LIDS: HATS OF ALL KINDS, INCLUDING THE LATEST FASHIONS FROM ORBIT CITY.

Other screens were playing commercials to entertain a crowd of guests as they waited for their store of choice to arrive... After which they would simply leap from the platform when it was close enough and land right on the satellite's "floor". Luigi guessed that it was a simple physics thing, and that each customer simply passed from Rainbow Road's gravity well to the shop's, but it was still striking to see: for a minute, it looked like each guest was flying!

Phil's Photography didn't come around for another fifteen minutes, but by the time the tiny satellite shop — a standard sphere, this one, with a tiled floor, a desk, and five copy machines and printers — came around, Luigi still hadn't prepared himself for the massive jump. His brain told him that if for some reason he jumped and "missed" the shop, the Road's gravity would catch him and pull him back to safety... But all his eyes could see was the ginormous gap between the platform and the shop, and all the space between him and planet Earth. From the edge of the platform, it looked about a billion miles.

In the end, he and Mario had to jump together — later, he would hang his head in shame at the fact that Mario had to hold his hand to get him across the gap, but at the moment he was just intensely grateful for the support. And it really was nothing: it was like a hopscotch jump. One second he was on the Road, and then he was standing in...on Phil's Photography shop.

"Hey folks!" the toad named Phil said cheerfully. "You're only my second customer of the day! What can I do for you?"

Mario handed him the one-coin camera and the telescope and put in their request, and Luigi tried to get used to their current orientation, which was weird as heck! Because the shop was sphere-shaped, it felt like he was standing at the top of a hill that continuously sloped in on itself — he walked around to the "bottom" of the shop, and it didn't feel any different from the top, but it still made his stomach turn.

Even more strange was how the Road looked from here: it was still a glassy and rainbow-colored spiral winding down towards the surface of the planet, but from the bottom of the shop, it and all the foot traffic on it looked upside down. But as Phil's Photography continued its journey around the Road, they soon passed over it.

Needless to say, by the time Phil finished printing their photos, Luigi was holding down his gorge with both hands.

"Let's go to a shop that's a little bigger," Mario suggested. "They've got flatter floors there. Maybe Mama Mia's! They sell really great lasagna. Hungry?"

An interesting choice to make. If he said yes to the restaurant, he would be egging on his nausea. If he said no to the restaurant, they'd go back to the Road, and it would be back to exercising again.

"Yeah," he said. "Breakfast felt like ages ago!"