Not mine, Marvel's.  No harm intended.  No money, don't sue.  Think that
about covers it . . .

Well, you asked for it :).  It's tiny, but it's something, and it's
finished, and I think my writer's block is dead.  Yay!

I seem to have something of a 'mystery character' theme going.  Sorry to do
this a second time, but I got struck by a fragment of inspiration.  I
*like* getting struck by inspiration.  Last time it hit me, it led to
*feedback*.  

Crossings

By Andraste

I saw him yesterday.  We crossed the road together, in fact.

Stuck waiting for the light to change from red to green, I spent a short
eternity studying him with that furtive sideways glance I have often
received from other people.  I didn't learn anything new.
	
I already know all that there is to know about him, after all.  That his
name is Michael Cook.  That he was born in London.  That he went on holiday
to Los Angeles in his mid-twenties, and never returned to England after he
met and married a local girl.  That they never had children, and divorced
some time ago.  That he came to Philadelphia last year to start his life
over again.

I know a lot of other things.  The brand of breakfast cereal he eats, his
favourite colour, the names of his two cats.  I know all about the rather
boring job he's acquired in a bank.  About the noisy neighbors whose wall
he thumps on every Sunday morning, early, the only show of temper in his
well-regulated little life.  

He took a woman he met at the laundry out for dinner last week.  I'm not
sure weather to hope he asks her out again or not.

I also know what he doesn't know - that there were any number of reasons
why he didn't have to stand there, tapping his foot impatiently, waiting
for the lights to change.

Perhaps he noticed me watching him after all.

"Excuse me, sir," he said with his new accent, "but have we met before?"

I looked up into blue eyes that I had stolen the fire from, and knew that I
was damned.  But damned, I still hoped, in a good cause.

"Were you ever in Jerusalem?" I replied.

There was no shock of recognition, only a shake of the head and an
unfamiliar smile.

"No," he said, "I was never in Jerusalem."

The light turned green.

The End

Author's Note

I wrote this because I'd been thinking for some time about that whole
"Xavier gives Magneto false memories of the Holocaust" plot line John Byrne
was/is planning to use in his "X-Men: the Hidden Years" series, and what a
spectacularly stupid suggestion it is.  

Even ignoring the continuity problems such a retcon would create, it would
imply that Charles was not only a sadist (which he is not) but also an
idiot.  If you want to stop someone from being a dangerous, psychotic super
villain, why give them traumatic experiences?  If Charles was going to
alter Magneto's memories, why not introduce a dose of normality into his
psyche instead?  Unethical, but oh so tempting . . . anyway, that's where
the story was coming from.  Hope you liked it :).



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