Date: Sun, 17 Oct 1999 18:15:35 -0700 From: Dannell Lites To: outsidethelines@Mailing-List.net Subject: [OTL]: STORY: A Short Magneto Story:):) By Puma Listee's!! Not moi's! Ah am Posting this for a friend: Puma! She can be reached at psu24736@odin.cc.pdx.edu. Let her know waht ya'll think heah?? Dannell! Magneto is marvel copyrighted, this is for fun not for money so if they want to sue they should pick on someone with $$$$ and not me. A Short Magneto Story By Puma (psu24736@odin.cc.pdx.edu) Jane had arrived early as usual and was the first of the now multiple horrified spectators that were pressing their hands and noses to the offices' windows. The tallest looking over the shoulder of the shortest, the late comers trying to squeeze in the gaps. It was the same scene along the all of the west side of the street for at least three block. The three facing the newest building that would grace the skyline. It was the same in the street and in the passing cars that were starting to block the flow of traffic. All that could, were staring at the lone teetering figure, precariously perched atop the very last and tallest transverse beam of the new building. That future home of unique dining experiences, prime retail outlets and first rate locations for the ever changing business landscape of the busy metropolis. That person up there, well he just didn't figure out with any of that, she thought. Not at all. As it looked it seemed that that drunk up there. Had to be! You could see that empty bottle easily. Clear as day. Why he'd be the edifice first spectacular death. She wished, badly wished that she had brought her camera. What she said was "Oh god! That poor man! God I hope he's gonna make it! This is awful." "No one to blame but himself. " was Jim's pithy comment." Alcoholics have to face up to their responsibility for the trouble they get themselves into! He made his bed, now he's gonna have to lay in it" Looking to redirect some of the sympathy that was pouring out at that flesh and blood weather vane out there he added "My uncle, he was one always worrying, traumatizing others....." didn't work. What was outside was so much more interesting. Vicky an overweight and perennially sad looking woman. Whose humor usually came at the expenses of others mistakes kinda agreed with Jim added with a nasal tentative voice that "Stupidity should be painful." She had a sticker that proclaimed just that on her desk Jane knew. She would see it when she walked by her cubicle, it always struck her as a stupid sticker. After all, it usually was painful, and often to people who had to suffer for someone else stupidity. And after all Vicky had not impressed anyone in the office as a particularly bright woman. Voices re focused her thought on her balance artist, after all she had been the one to call the police, to point him out and see him first. And now there he was slowly standing up. The white shirt tails flapping in the wind, the arms outstretched to function as balance beams. Taking his first tentative step to the one ladder by the farthest crossbeam. "Oh Jesus!" "Oh God!" "Oh Jesus, Jesus!" You'd think you'd stepped into a church, one of those revivalist kind they way they were calling on an higher power. Some of them meant it too. Brian did. "Get down! Get down and grab the mean just crawl over don't walk dammit." Despite the intensity it came out low. Jane liked him, balding, somewhat overweight and short. He still had the personality of a scrapper. Lively electric eyes and a tough but caring inner core the result of his early fight with spina bifida. He just never believed in quitting a fight. "Sit down!" came trough his clenched teeth , his attention was entirely on the man outside. The balance artist slipped then, within the time that it took him to slip from the beam and barely manage to secure a grasp on it with his hands two people fainted and one sat down heavily in his chair clutching at his chest, his left arm. Looking about confusedly and managing only to say"ggggrhhh" before keeling over. Sirens now. A Greek choir of them echoing off the glass and concrete canyons of the buildings. The balance artists was struggling to regain his seat atop the beam, his arms seemed to weak to carry him over. "Wow... this is really...." "Yeah...intense." "Exiting, never seen anything ,like this before. I mean. I guess I feel bad for the guy...but like,... you know....if he died?" "Yeah?" "Like, not to be mean, but I never saw anybody die before, this is like.... a really deep experience" "You want some coffee?" "Yeah sure" "Get me a cup too?" giggled John. Frank had been a temp in account processing for three months now with John, the prospect of permanent hiring was damned unlikelier by the day, or wanting to work here for that matter. He was sure, SURE, that sitting in front of that screen for eight hours was wheedling his eyesight to nothing, he was gonna quit yesterday, but right now he was pretty happy to have waited. This was too interesting. "Yeah, like I wanna miss this." Maybe he'd actually see the guy hit the ground. The balance artist was up again he had managed to swing one of his long legs over the beam and slowly had recovered his seat. For a while he had just lain there, his cheek to the metal. Arms and legs non chalantly dangling into space, like one of those big cats on an African tree that you'd sometimes see on a nature show. Then he started to get up again. The sirens were still going off. You could see paramedics and firemen taking stretchers into the buildings. For a few harts this was turning out to be an overtly strong stress test. Up, up in the air he had started to walk. Knees bent. Arms out. Tentative steps to the cross beam that offered a way out. Six feet to a series of metal rungs hung on the vertical beams. Six feet to safety. Four feet away he fell to one knee. "This is best extended coffee break ever. " Only a few people turned to see who said that with disapproving and horrified glances. Actually the shared the same thought but it was just not the proper thing to say, and never would they admit, never, that they ever thought such thoughts themselves. Feeling safe in their righteousness they quickly turned to the window not wanting to miss anything. He was still there thank goodness. But trying to get back up. "Don't do it!" "Just hug the beam and crawl man!""Just don't move." All sound advice. But the balance artist took none of it. He stood up, took two more steps. And dove. Shrieks. Spilled coffee and shouts accompany his descent. As do two more heart attacks and more sirens. The fall ends long before the shrieks do. The shouts still go on as the balance artists now defies gravity and remains suspended in mid air, far above ground. Laughing. And laughing. Twisting now like a caught fish and laughing without regards for the dictates of gravity. He then flies away. Just like one of them damn super duper heroes! "Well, sunofabitch!" Thinks Jane as her balance artist laughing to hard to keep a steady course runs into the corner of a building."Damn" she thinks as he shakes the dust of his white hair and not quite flies. But zooms away so quickly that it could be almost be called a disappearing act. Leaving his viewers to return to their lives of quiet desperation. Magneto is not really flying now. More like bodysurfing to his destination on the hearth magnetic field. Occasionally releasing his hold on them to freefall, twist and somersault in midair only to recover and recapture his hold on the magnetic fields at the last moment, a few feet short of impact and to propel himself aloft again in the cold rarefied air. He is an odd good mood today. Great actually, and it pleases and surprises him. An unconnected thought enters his mind. The Eiffel tower. All of that metal. Why, he would stop first at some art museum, get a few idea about modern sculpture, maybe first he would draw a few sketches and then. France. With all of that free standing steel. Just waiting for him.