The Spinning Meridian

I climbed straight up the turned oak leg of the study desk to reach the giant desktop globe! The sphere was tilted in a gleaming brass arc, showing uncharted oceans and green ridges under the morning sunbeam. When I leaped onto the brass meridian to chart the painted mountain ranges, my boot nudged the equator, and the entire world started spinning beneath me! I didn't back down; I dropped low into a crouch, planted both heels firmly against the curved metal ring, and pressed the flat of my blade right against the lower hemisphere. The friction of the steel slowed the dizzying spin to a gentle drift, halting a vast continent right before my boots!