ToxicWire

“Oh my God!” a woman shouted. “He’s going to jump!”
A massive crowd began to form on the sidewalks below the twelve story building.
Pretty bad things have happened to me lately. Maybe I can talk that man out of jumping… a man thought.
The man gave a surprised look at his own thoughts. Shoving through the crowd, he dashed toward the towering building. Several others quickly followed him, hoping to help the suicidal man in some way. By the time an elevator had reached the man, the other four caught up with him, even the old woman. The group hurriedly boarded the elevator and pushed the button for the roof.
Upon reaching the roof, the group hurriedly rushed from the elevator to find the suicidal man turned towards them.
“My wife wants a divorce,” he said, answering the unasked question. “She is taking my kid away from me. My kid! I helped in the creation of that baby; he is partially my kid!”
The man was dressed in a plain white t-shirt and raggedy jeans. His short yet thick brown hair was shaggy and uncombed.
“Aw, sweetie…” an old woman said walking up to the man, her gray hair glistening in the evening sunlight.
She was much shorter than the man, and looked at him through her bifocals.
“Many others have it far worse than you and they do not kill themselves. Think this through. There is still much yet to live for; much more wisdom to gain.”
She paused, a tear trickling down her wrinkled cheeks.
“About one month ago my grandbaby was run over,” she sighed.
She paused once more, fighting back the tears.
“After four days in the hospital, he died.”
A man from the group quickly walked up beside the old woman and grasped her hand. He was tall and had neatly combed black hair. His chin was smoothly shaved and a coffee stain was on his black suit.
“About a month ago, I ran over a little boy. He was just a small, young boy; a blonde haired toddler merely getting his puppy out of the street,” he said, tears flowing down his face.
Perspiration dripped from the man’s enormous hands as the old woman clasped them harder.
“My mother is in the hospital,” said another man as he walked from the remaining group.
His hair was short and curly and was colored a bright red. Freckles clustered under his green eyes and around his nose. Above his blue jean shorts he wore a red button-down shirt that blew in the coming wind.
“She…” his voice trailed off.
“She has a brain tumor. The doc gives her another week. I was on my way to see her.”
Another lady walked up beside the other three people.
“They tore down my church today,” she sadly said, her brown eyes gazing down onto the concrete.
The suicidal man gave her a threatening glare as she lifted her head up and pulled her long, brunette hair behind her ears; her tremendous golden hoops dangled from her ears.
“Sure it was small,” she continued. “But it was a good church. Nice, humble people went there. We all viewed the church as a second home. Everyone knew everyone else, and the preacher was so passionate in his preaching.”
The remaining young woman from the group, about sixteen or seventeen, walked up to the other four people.
“I had my braces put on yesterday,” she sighed. “Now everyone makes fun of me, even most of my so-called friends. On top of that, my boyfriend broke up with me! He said that he couldn’t be seen with someone as hideous as I am.”
“Just last week he said that I was the prettiest woman on Earth.”
Her blue eyes, placed perfectly on her smooth, clear face, looked up intently at the suicidal man.
“So you see,” the young woman stated calmly, flipping her blonde hair back and shifting her long legs to put more weight on her right leg, “others have it better, or worse, than you.”
“Do not jump, there is a lot to yet live for,” the Christian lady blurted. “God can help you.”
The suicidal man said not a word, but looked up at the group; they returned the gaze, hopeful that they had gotten through to him.
“Come!” he suddenly hissed. “Join me! Let our sorrows end!”
He looked at each of the five people for several seconds each, though he stared much longer solely at the Christian. He knew that her elusive mind would try to escape him.
“Yes, let all of our troubles end,” the five said in unison.
The five people and the suicidal man slowly walked to the edge of the building. They peered down at the slightly smaller crowd and began counting.
“One…two…three!”
All but the suicidal man jumped. He smiled a sick, twisted smile as he began stripping his clothes.
“Five more and counting,” he cackled in an inhuman voice.
As he turned and walked away, a name was deeply etched into his bare back, blood tricking down onto the concrete. The name read: Satan.

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Young Writer in Progress (age 13)

Dairy Pharmer

creepy as all hell, but I like it.

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-Dairy Pharmer

"True religion is living; with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness." -Einstein

JemG

Wow, morbid. But good. A little far-fetched at the end, they (most likely) would not have given in that easily. Unless Satan had miraculous mind powers that I missed, which is totally possible since I'm really tired, but meh. Anyway, again, I liked it!

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Words are food. I'm a glutton.
- Alexa

NoWorries

Nice story, but like Jem said, you need to expand on the reason they were talked into jumping, not really believable as is, although I see where you're going.

Your descriptions of the settings and people were perfect, I can't say anything about how to make that better.

Where I think you need the most work is the dialogue. Almost all of it is unbelievable and unemotional.

The worst Examples:
Those are the bad ones, in my opinion, too blocky and they don't mirror the emotions of the people saying them. You could put each of those lines anywhere in any story, with any character saying them, and they would convey as sterile a message anywhere. What I would suggest is going back, putting yourself in the characters position, and writing what you think they'd say, then say it out loud, read it in context, and make sure it flows.

There were three exceptionally good lines,
They flowed perfectly into the character saying them, they sounded like things only that character could say, and those lines jumped out at me as being great. I especially liked Satan's line because it was 'matter of fact' and filled with hate.

I'm surry to attack your dialogue like this, you've got a gift for the description, and the story had a great plot with a nice forward motion, the dialogue really is the only thing that I see that needs major work.

The only non-speech issues I had were:
It sounds like a contradiction on her part. She "stated calmly" but then shifted her weight, a sign she's uncomfortable, and then probably not calm. I'd like to see this line cut down to say the same thing. In example: said the girl, shifting her weight to the right.

It's simpler and now we know she's slightly uneasy without wondering how she can be calmly uneasy. I hope you see what I'm saying, that line was a lot of work to read.

And lastly, the semi-colons; they are kind of oddly placed, in my opinion. They seem to be in the correct places, but everytime I saw one, I had to stop and reread the sentence to see if I was missing some important reason that there was a semi-colon instead of a comma. I know that Microsoft Word throws them in in spell check; that's no reason to use them...if that's the reason you're using them.

Anyways, an exceptionally entertaining story, with great discription and nicely written. I'd like to see it again with some dialogue surgery.

ToxicWire

Thank you for the comments and the suggestions, I will be doing work on this story and shall post it again soon.

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Young Writer in Progress (age 13)

Loki

I loved the ending. By the ending, I mean the seduction of the jumper to kill the rest.

Although I have a problem with the quickness they took the leap. You might want to be more realistic and have them put up a fight.

Also, some of the dialogue seems a little constipated, but a very good story indeed.

Great, keep it up.

P.S. The satan carving in his back might be a little too obvious...why not try a pentagram on his back or something symbolic.

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"You don't die enough to cry." - Kerouac