PreludeIt was summer…no, early fall. We were moving back into the dorms. Cold day for August…"Excuse me, sir?"
She was dressed in blue…or was it green? Yeah, green. That ugly green jacket her cats slept on. God, she looked beautiful in it…"Uh…sir?"
Got her hair chopped and dyed over the summer. Rich brown like chocolate. And her eyes…"Sir???"
Almond shaped and the color of… of… Why can't I remember what color her eyes were?"SIR!" reality washed over me in a wave and it felt like I was waking from a dream. Sounds flooded back to me; the roar of the train, the conversations of other passengers, and the breathing of the girl standing in front of me who had apparently been trying to get my attention for some time.
"Um…yes?" was all I could manage to spit out. I could feel my cheeks getting hot. I had been spacing out more often over the past few months, but I never thought it was this bad.
The pretty girl just smiled at me, "I think this is your stop. Wouldn't want you to miss it."
I looked at the stop number and cursed under my breath. She was right. I jump up and started running off the train, turning and shouting thanks just before I hopped off and the doors closed. Head she not been there, I would probably still be on that train with my fantasies and completely missed my first day at my new job. It was the first job offer I'd had in a while and I couldn't afford to miss it.
Not many jobs were out there for people of my schooling. My major was social work. I had this idea that I would change the world, one delinquent at a time. Then I realized that that dream was simply that, a dream. In the end I found myself jobless, girlfriendless, and starving in a bad apartment. Everything had gone downhill after that fateful day…
Imogene…Why had I been thinking about her? Ever since that day I had been more disconnected from the world and prone to daydreaming, but I had never thought about her. I told myself it was too painful. What irked me the most was the fact that I couldn't remember all of her. She was fading and I didn't know how to handle that.
I shook all thoughts of Imogene out of my head and walked out into the bustle of the city. I didn't have money for a cab, so I would have to walk all the way to the building that I was supposed to be working at now. They said it was owned by a division of the police. They needed me, apparently, because they had some uncooperative witness that wouldn't talk since she was mentally disturbed and suffering from post traumatic stress. Or at least that's what they told me.
I didn't care about the details, though. Work was work. I hurried down the streets with a new found vigor. I was only twenty-seven, but I had become like an old man in my seclusion. I was always tired, but now things were different. Things were looking up.
I picked up a newspaper on my way and started flipping through the pages as I walked. I turned the page and immediately my eye was caught by rows and rows of pictures. All were girls between the ages of five and twelve and all were missing. Some had been missing for ten years while others had been gone for mere months. The richer families had paid for other photos to be put in; digitally edited pictures that were supposed to show what the girl would look like if she was still alive today. The sad part was that probably none of these girls was still alive. They were probably raped and murdered a long time ago but the families just couldn't come to terms with it.
I gazed at all the blank eyes staring up at me- starting to think of her again- but my concentration was broken as I came to the building. It certainly looked like a government building, large and imposing. The inside wasn't much better. All plain hallways and numbered doors. I came to the one I was looking for. It looked like a scene from Law and Order in there.
It was the room on the observing side of the mirror. A large man in suspenders leaned against the wall while a young, female officer stood next to the glass, staring at the captive in the other room. No one said anything at my arrival so I went to stand next to the woman and look at the girl I was supposed to talk to. It wasn't very impressive.
A small, dark ball of a person sat huddled in the corner of the amazingly white room, looking obtrusive dressed in blue scrubs. She hugged her legs up to her chest and I couldn't see her face through the mass of dingy hair that hung in front of it.
"So…that's her. What happened to her?" I asked, trying to break the silence.
"That's not important," the male officer barked, glaring at me as if I were a roach. I rolled my eyes, repressing the urge to tell him exactly how stupid that statement was.
"Everything you need to know is in this file," the young, woman officer handed me a folder and smiled politely. "We just need you to get her to say what happened to her. We brought her in yesterday, but she won't talk to anyone. The doctors suggested that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress and needed help from a psychiatrist. That's why you're here."
"Well, that makes me feel so loved," I said sarcastically and leafed through the file. This girl had been through a lot. She had been found in a burning building, standing amongst the charred and scattered remains of at least five people who had appeared to have spontaneously combusted. She has suffered third-degree burns on her back and legs and there were signs of rape as well. No one knew who she was, where she came from, or why she had been there. She wouldn't talk to anyone and she resisted being touched in any way. This was not going to be easy.
"Well, I better get started." After waiting for a response with no avail, I walked out of the room and into the one that now housed the mysterious girl. The air seemed different in there, charged. It was creepy to know that behind the large mirror were the two officers silently watching me. No pressure.
I pulled up a chair and sat across from the girl, trying my best to be jovial.
"My name is Mr. Nagano, but you can call me Brian. I was sent here to talk to you. Can you tell me your name?" I was greeted by silence.
"You need to tell me your name. It's only fair since I told you mine."
More silence. She lifted her head a little, as if to scrutinize me. For a split second as her face came into view I thought I saw Imogene's face, causing me to jump. The mirage faded as quickly as it had appeared. Besides, this girl couldn't be Imogene. She was only in her teens and Imogene would have been twenty-five by now. Not to mention the fact that they looked nothing alike. Imogene had lively, laughing eyes- whatever color they were. This girl's eyes were dark and empty, detached from the world around her. It was like she was looking at me but not, like she was seeing past me.
I knew this was not going smoothly so I tried to act the part of a caring parent. After all she had been through, it would only be natural for her to need some comfort. Besides, I had to impress those suits in the other room to keep this job and that meant getting her to talk. I reached out my hand to pat her on the arm, the way my father had before he had gone insane and jumped off the roof of the house.
"I know you've been through a lot, but I'm here to help you. So are the people who brought you here. They just want to help you…" just as my hand was about to land on her arm she jerked into life, grabbing my wrist in a surprisingly strong grip. Her eyes burned with new life, no longer dull and listless. I could feel a sort of energy radiating off of her and I thought I saw the lights flicker.
Then I was back to that day.
I saw it all in my mind. Driving home, her smile, laughing at our terrible lip synching to our favorite song, dancing in the moonlight, pouring my heart out to her, her warm embrace, then everything going black, a cloud of doom washing over everything, a far off scream, my dreams being shattered, the truth of the world smacking me in the face…and still I couldn't remember what color her eyes were…
The girl let go of my wrist and settled back down into her huddled mass. The vision faded away into nothingness and I realized I was gasping for air. My hands were shaking and sweat ran down my face.
There was a knock on the door, the signal that I should come out. I got to my feet and shakily walked to the door. My thoughts were racing. What had just happened?
"Violet." a small voice from the corner said as I reached out my hand to grab the door knob. I turned and stared at the girl curiously, bewildered for the first time in my life.
"What did you say?"
"Her eyes…they were violet." She remained expressionless as she said it, not even looking at me but staring off into the distance. She glanced at me once and then laid down facing the wall with her head on her hands.
I wanted to know how she knew that, to shake her and order her to tell me how she knew Imogene and what I was thinking, but I restrained myself. There had to be some logical explanation, there always was. So, trying to convince myself that what had just happened was all a coincidence, I turned the knob and walked out.
Chapter 2
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