Chapter Four: Pamela's Window

Chapter Four: Pamela's Window

There is a moment; a moment when the world you dream of is confronted by the world that exists. This is not a sudden process; it is a slow and gradual journey that can take years to unfold. Slowly dreams become fantasy, slowly mysteries become reality. There is a moment however, when these two worlds collide, an explosive epiphany triggered by any insignificant or traumatizing act. Pamela Valentine’s was a window.

            There was a window, non-irregular by design or shape. This window rested on the far wall of a studio apartment in downtown Boston. This, rundown, one bed room loft was in no way special; the builders and architects that had fashioned the building considered the studio just one of the forty seven rooms the building housed, the widow; simply one out of the hundreds that made up its exterior. However, to Pamela Valentine, this window and this room directly coincided with a thought that would change her life forever, a slow and gradual thought, once so sure to her, now seemed to be nothing other than a fantasy, the simple and eloquent notion that she had lost her mind.

This window, unlike the other seventy two windows on the apartment’s floor, and the two hundred ninety six identical windows that occupied the apartment building in total, this particular window had an excellent view of the graveyard that rested on the opposite side of the adjacent building. Unless you were privy to what it was, one would wake up every morning, look out such a window and examine an excellent view into an oasis of lush vegetation; A patch of green surrounded by glass and metal. Pam Valentine regarded such a sight as a as a misfortune.

               “I’m crazy, I must be,” her logical solution exited her lips as she took a gentle sip of her pitch black coffee. Time seemed to stand still as the complete and devastating wave of reality crashed upon her. She had made a promise in that cemetery; a promise she had spent the last fourteen years trying to complete, this morning however, this unimportant morning to the rest of the world marked the beginning of an all too real truth, a truth that she had pushed away for so long that the logic behind it seemed impossible to perceive. It was June fifteenth; her father had been dead now for fourteen years.

               While some would take their lack of sanity as a hindrance to their every day schedule, Pam took it in stride; she calmly sipped her cup of coffee and made her way away from the window to the wall on the opposite side of the studio. What once gave her a proud feeling of accomplishment now seemed tainted. She glared at the contents of the wall with disgust and frustration. The wall was covered with newspaper articles and photographs, strings of yarn connecting large clusters of articles together to form an elaborate tapestry. As she stood there in her boyshorts and  her loose white tanktop, her shoulder length dark brown hair pulled into a ponytail over her shoulder, her dark green eyes examined the wall of theories once more, searching through the articles, reading between the lines, examining the photographs, hoping, praying silently for reassurance. Her fury reached intolerable levels as she reached for one of the articles with the intention to tear the entire tapestry down.

   She hesitated

                With a heavy heart beat she could remember her life, a lifetime away:  where she had friends to call her own, a family that cared for her, a life she considered perfect. it was a stormy night in the middle of June, Pamela sat in the solace of her room, its walls decorated in posters of music icons and movie stars, her stuffed animals lounging lazily upon and around the furniture, her kick boxing trophy standing monumentally on her dresser. This was where Pam was found when her mother told her that her father had fallen to his death form the roof of the Metro Building.

The moments that followed seemed to cram together, blend into the perpetual grey that suddenly overcame her, she remembered the funeral, sitting in a fold up chair watching people she had never met tell her that ‘everything was going to be ok.’ She remembered sitting alone in the graveyard long after every one had said there final farewells, she was trying to rationalize why she felt so hollow now, why it felt like a piece of her was missing, forever gone now that he was. Mr. Valentine was her best friend, the center of her world; his little renegade.

               Pamela remembered the promise that she made to a dead man that day as she left the graveyard, the same grave yard that she sipped her coffee to every morning. That day Pamela vowed that she would find who or what had killed her father; it was the only way to make her whole again.

               “Where are you!?” she exhaled in frustration as she stepped closer to the wall. With her free hand she followed a yellow string, first pinned in Washington, its path taking her up through Pennsylvania, up into Canada, and down to Indiana , over to New Orleans and now back to Boston. Pam’s dainty fingers moved across the faded yellow wall paper, carefully following the string until it reached a large landscape photo of the Metro Building in downtown Boston.

               She had made a promise at that funeral, almost a lifetime away, her heart raced as the all too familiar feeling of doubt pushed its way in. ‘I’m crazy to think your alive, no one could have survived a fall like that, no one.’ She realized, her eyes shifting to the stack of articles in the center of the web; these far more worn and jaded then the rest. She examined the article re reading it again, though she had memorized each sentence, each notation by heart. “Ravaged by a mysterious storm, Travis Valentine fell to his death atop the Boston Metro building in down town.” She exhaled as she once more turned to the window. “ The security officer had been working for the building for three years, he will be leaving behind a wife a daughter,” another quote from the article passes her lips like a whisper as she found herself once more standing in front of the window.

There was a moment, a moment when the world around you will provide you with the undeniable proof that the world you live in is contrary to the world that exists. Such a moment was upon her. It crept up her spine and screamed in her ears until she could hear nothing else but the shame and fear of a wasted life. “I must be crazy.” She realized as she began to smile. Excitement building as she turned back to the web of theories and articles that had littered her one room studio apartment, her bare feet pattering against the hard wood floors as she reached the wall. With defiant enlightenment she examined the weather reports and compared them to her map of Boston and the surrounding areas. “The funeral will be held on Wednesday; there was no body recovered a closed casket funeral.” The last lines of the article paraphrased as she picked up a marker form the ground and traced the travel pattern of a tropical storm heading for the city, circling the Metro building as it coincided with the time stamp form fourteen years ago. “I must be crazy.” She exhaled with certainty, but she did not care. Her insanity had led her to the undeniable conclusion that the same storm that had claimed the life of her father would return to Boston tonight. The answer to all her questions rested on the roof of the Metro building. All she had to do now was get there, easily done considering she worked there.

Reviews

[Yaseen J Malik]

All will be revealed in time. Ill post more soon

[Hatter57]

Yaseen,

Interesting development. I do have a couple of questions that I think need answers, although it's OK if they don't come in this chapter. Fisrt, how can a man die in a fall and his body not be recovered? I'm not familiar with Boston; does the Metro building overlook the bay? If so, that needs to be stated so the reader understands the implication that he fell into the water during a storm and the assumption is that the body was swept out to sea. If there's another explanation in store, I can't wait to hear it. It sounds like it will be absolutely fascinating. Second, I gather Pam is tracking a single storm through all of the cities mentioned? In that order? That's a most unusual weather pattern, and given the amount of attention professional forcasters give it and the tools they bring to bear, someone would have been bound to notice. Or does the storm die out and reappear leter? If this is the case, there must be characteristics that set this storm apart from other (i.e. natural) storms that allow Pam to see the pattern others have missed. Again, I am looking forward to seeing how you handle this in future chapters.

Keep writing, and I'll see you around NS.