Valentina Gembressi - 1 March 1999

The Day There Was No Magnetism

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My day started off pretty normal, actually it was great. My boyfriend, Shaun, and I were on our way to Florida. However, as we were boarding the airplane a weird feeling came over me. I knew something wasn’t right but I brushed it off because I was three hours away from lying on the beach and finally getting away from the cold weather.

The plane took off without a problem. The pilot came on the loudspeaker and announced that the flight attendants would be coming around with delicious snacks. Just then I started to hear a slight rumble. I thought maybe it was Shaun’s stomach but when I looked over at him he seemed fine, happily looking out his window. The rumbling went on for an hour before anybody seemed to notice. The noise became extremely loud and the plane had to make an emergency landing. As we left the plane, we all could see that something wasn’t right.

The motor in the plane had mysteriously stopped. The lights on the runway were out and as Shaun and I looked around we noticed that all of the lights everywhere were out. We went into the terminal to see if we could get some information but all of the computers were out and everyone seemed to be in a frenzy. Shaun and I decided to stay calm and maybe try to call home and see if everything was okay there. We walked over to a line of pay phones that we had noticed earlier. Shaun picked up one phone but said it didn't work. I picked up another one but the line was dead. We then tried every single phone but not one of them worked.

Now I was getting upset because everything was going wrong. I was supposed to be in Florida on vacation but now I was stuck in an airport somewhere in Georgia and nothing seemed to be working. Shaun sat me down and thought it might be a good idea to try and catch the news on TV. He tried to turn on one of the TVs but it didn't work. In fact none of them worked. By this time we were both exhausted and hungry. We then went looking for a place to get dinner. On the way to the elevator we saw a group of tourists on the floor trying to fix their cameras. It was quite an odd sight. As we got closer we heard them complaining that none of their cameras worked. When we got to the elevator of course it didn’t work so we took the stairs four floors down to the food court.

The only restaurant open was all lit up with candles and in a way kind of pretty. Once inside we realized that the restaurant didn’t have any power either so the refrigerator and stoves didn’t work. The only food the place had was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and warm apple juice. Shaun and I were so hungry that it didn’t matter to us, food was food. It was starting to get very late and since the plane didn't seem to be leaving anytime soon and we couldn’t get any contact with the outside world, we decided to find a place to spend the night. We found two comfortable benches in a secluded part of the airport.

It must have been all of the excitement we had that day because as soon as Shaun and I laid down we both fell into a deep sleep. When we awoke in the morning we made a mutual decision to take a walk outside and get some fresh air and maybe try to find out what was going on.

Shaun and I were on the roof of the parking garage, my favorite part of the airport, and we noticed a man watching a flock of seagulls. The birds seemed to have no idea where they were going. Most of them seemed to be flying north and this was strange because it was the middle of winter and birds usually fly south for winter. While I was thinking about the birds I saw Shaun walk over to the man. I recognized him; he had sat in front of me on the plane. I had remembered him saying something about being a Physicist so I figured that maybe he might know what was going on. I was right. He told Shaun and me that starting the day before, the world as we knew it had changed forever. He told us that there was no longer any magnetism on Earth and this explained all the weird things that were happening. All three of us then walked away slowly to see how else our world had changed.