At the end of a nerve-wrenching day, Pam stretched her exhausted limbs to do away with all the stresses that her last shift had rendered. She couldn't bother to change her scrubs this afternoon, as breaking the rules after a Friday shift was apparently her thing.
"Turning curious or disdaining heads in the pub is entertainment from another dimension', she mused. "The other girls must be on their way to The Tavern; boy have we earned our treat!"
Pulling her red hair up in a messy bun and gathering her belongings, she headed out through the out-patient department, waved a cheerful goodbye to the receptionist and stepped out into the bright sunlight of late summer. The mild breeze felt refreshing on her weary skin as she wavered towards the bicycle shade. Was there any reason for her to deliberately stagger the time a little? Shouldn't have been, as it was finally Friday on a nice bright day and she was about to see her friends from nursing school. Still, was there any longing deep set in some untrodden path of her sub-consciousness that made her want to linger in the area a tad bit longer? Whatever it was, she would not let it sanction its way to her conscious mind. But she was aware that her cosmic exploring sub-consciousness is way more powerful and interesting to loose over any rationality. Resigning, she let any spark of rationality give way and took a good searching look around. And there he was, standing at a far corner, the breeze artistically tousling his dark brown hair, often teasing against the fair skin of his face. The sunlight majestically played lighter tones on his locks that lifted in the air. The stubble of facial hair almost looked ginger in the bright sunlight. Pam watched in slightly unabashed fascination how he made no attempt to remove those unruly, straight and spiky locks away from his face, but allowing the wind to take care of it. He moved a few paces closer from the corner, which allowed Pam enough exposure of her enigmatic subject to estimate statistics. "He might be in his mid-thirties, if he does not look hopelessly younger than actual age, just like myself…vertically quite blessed, clearly above 6 feet…medium built, well sculpted… might make a neat silhouette". A deep shade of embarrassment crept up to her cheeks to acknowledge that she was estimating the statistics of a stranger, but given the accounts of that past week, hadn't she theoretically earned the right to do so?
Pam's recollection
Somewhere within the field of my peripheral vision, I conceptualised the form of a not-so-run-of-the-mill male figure, but the rush to get back home on a Monday afternoon did not allow me more than a passing glance. It sure was not banal that a passing glance at a random stranger around the hospital vicinity had a deeper impact on me to glance back after a few steps away, but coming across someone worth a glance back is not rocket science, be it in an unexpected venue.
At the end of the following day, I found him leaning against the wall of the frontline security office, which was located a few yards away from the bike shade. While unlocking my bike, I stole a few glances towards him, still not daring an eye-contact. I could still feel his gaze gently warming down on me, which made me self-aware; the eight-hour long shift couldn't have been very kind to my appearance. But who cares, at least it was home time. Leaned, one foot propped back up against the wall and arms crossed – he looked too relaxed to be any patient's relative, let alone be a patient himself. New personnel?...
It was pouring down heavily on Wednesday afternoon, causing traffic congestions, rail disruptions and bus diversions, consequently forming a huge crowd around the exit. I was too distressed to look out for him that day; running around in train stations to follow the diverted route home was not my favourite activity. While filtering through the crowd and carefully avoiding puddles, I somehow made my way towards the entrance of the station. That was when a glimpse of this stranger crossed my field of vision for a fraction of a time, before disappearing in the crowd. If I had seen correctly, he was not using any umbrella under the heavy showers, his black jacket sodden against his skin. A galore of questions suddenly bombarded my mind – 'who is he? Is he stalking me? Wait, wait… am I not the last person in the universe to be stalked? Am I a little daunted? If so, why am I a little drawn too? Why do I keep on coming across him? And lastly, am I the only one seeing him?' I always worked under stress and I didn't presume that would mess my brain to produce recurrent visions of unusually good looking men. That night I even ended up dreaming him. I can be quite pathetic…
I gain more life as the week rolls towards Friday. Consequently, on Thursday afternoon I gladly agreed to accompany a colleague to a little shopping trip at a nearby mall. Before my eyes could pass censorship from my judicial sense, they were hovering over every possible spot where the mysterious man might be present. But he was nowhere in sight…a wave of disappointment surged through me, more than I would admit to my logical self. With an unwanted tinge of apathy, I unlocked my bicycle and pedalled off with the colleague out of the hospital. As we came to a halt at the nearest traffic light, a Harley Davidson pulled up right beside me; motorbikes always fascinated me, but today I was in no mood to check the one beside me, had it not for the rider to rev the engine for a short while. Taken aback, I turned my head on my right just in time to watch the rider flip back the tinted visor on his helmet, revealing a pair of emerald green eyes, peering right at me. Although in theory it was difficult to ensure that this was him, since I did not see his face up close before, I somehow assumed…strike that…assumed with some kind of unknown authenticity that it was him indeed. But why did those green eyes seem eerily familiar? And why am I more than just looking into his captivating eyes? Well, before the questions even registered in my consciousness, an intruder green, which happened to be the traffic light, glared up and he was gone in no time. I muddled with my pedals a bit, causing some irritated cars to wait behind me as I pulled away with my colleague.
Pam had a vague hope that he might interact in some way on that day – that was what she concluded from the experience gathered over the last four days. The encounters were way too consistent to be coincidental. The familiarity she felt regarding his emerald eyes were inexplicable beyond her knowledge. And for some reason, she did not want to resort to any sort of pettiness by making inane connections. She would much rather plunge beyond the realms of common knowledge to seek the truth. She fumbled with the key of her bicycle lock, anticipating that he will make some move. As though her expectation had been telepathically conveyed, out of the corner of her eyes, she noticed that his static stance began to mobilise; he stretched out to his full height, arms by his side, fingers curling into fists and uncurling, then repeating.
"Is he about to punch me or something? That too in public? But why? Well I am ready to face whatever he has in the inventory for me", Pam contemplated aloud, before shoving the bike-lock key back in her uniform pocket and turning towards him. "Something tells me it's not yet time to leave".
Time slowed down, making everything move like molasses poured from a barely tilted gradient as visibility of the surrounding environment considerably blurred out. However, the man in question did not seem to be affected by the time and he still appeared in ultra HD. The situation reminded Pam of some kind of arcade pc games, where the enemies and everything else were slowed down for the avatar to get an impossibly tedious business done in no time. Well something else turned out to be impossible; she was viewing him up front and this close for the first time, which revealed how impossibly attractive he appeared to her. "Hand-crafted by Creator, a simple form of masterpiece", Pam pondered, almost in a meditative state. His features gave some clue to his lineage – Caucasian for sure, his height and extra fair skin also inferred Anglo-Saxon ancestry, but without blond hair. But his hypnotic looks were not the only reason Pam was gawking at him…it was way beyond flesh.
He already started to stride towards her with cautious steps. And that was when a valance of inexplicable sensations gushed over her, petrifying her out of every spark of wisdom. Flashes of arbitrary visual sequences that weirdly felt familiar declared their presence in front of her eyes. The sequences appeared, overlapped with the next one then dissipated into thin air before the next one took the lead. The domain of the whole experience seemed to exist somewhere in the middle of virtualisation and tangibility.
A gun majestically spinning across with the flick of a wrist, with an out-of-focus man behind… Long fingers wiggled on piano keys, creating the most beautiful version of Loch Lomond that Pam ever heard; it sounded like a lullaby from a music box - upon gliding her eyes up the pianist's sleeved arms, it turned out to be him… a parade of immaculately uniformed men, all marching graciously in sync…up close to a uniformed man, with the brim of his cap pulled close to his emerald eyes…a ballroom, colourful flashes of vintage gowns flared through the air, as musicians played cheerful classics, to which Pam was happily stepping away in perfect cadence, being interlocked with him…Pam was dressing a wound on his shoulder, using the medical supplies that looked relatively different from what she is used to now; was this an infirmary?...a big full moon looming over what seems like a fortress of some kind – a little zoomed in on something that looks like the remains of a balcony, where she found herself with him, while he seemed to be saying something; the words sounded too distorted to make out, but 'run away' and 'I will always watch over you' seemed relatively coherent. His green eyes in the soft moonlight shone with agonizing despair as he spoke; oh how Pam yearned to discern what was being said! Her train of thought was interjected by a heaven-splitting bang of gunfire, when she was confronted with the final vision of him lying on a pool of blood; a pair of emerald eyes lifelessly reflected a huge explosion…
"What on earth is this sorcery all about?" she thought before almost instantaneously correcting herself that it was no sorcery – what she just experienced tugged deep in to her soul and reverberated the very essence of her existence, which definitely has a kinship with the Divine.
Time resumed its normal tempo, morphing the universe back into the mundane reality. With a shudder Pam adjusted herself back into when and where. Self-consciousness drew in as she realised with some concern that the man was standing inches away from her now; his luminous green eyes, fringed by long dark lashes, lanced her in place. For a moment, his lucid eyes reminded her of the River Lethe from classical mythology. And how longingly she wanted to take a dive and slip into the deepest state of oblivion to…what? escape her commonplace reality of an overworked and underpaid nurse or retrieve the lost reality which she just had a synopsis of?
"I fervently wish I am not waking up in some mental-health department as a hopeless patient confined in some cell…"
"Are you alright?", his softly spoken deep baritone jolted her back from her reverie. He watched intently as her mouth struggled in silence before she could formulate a reply. Her mouth felt as dry as to feel that it would flake off if she attempted to speak.
"Uh-ah-I-…I will be fine", she admitted, because her unstable disposition was far too obvious to be hidden, and she attempted to feign a smile although she had no idea if it did any justice to her face. Self-consciousness drew in once again, as she considered with utter mortification how she might have looked during the epiphany. She was clueless as to when she fished the bike key out of her pocket, which she was now fidgeting with to calm her nerves, not long before it accidentally got flung in the air, landing a few steps passed him. Despite the embarrassment for her lack of articulation, Pam was allured to watch how one corner of his beautiful slender lips twitched up slightly, before blooming into a full blown smile.
"At least worth the embarrassment, Pam mused. "Besides, he has been the spectator when I must have looked like a fool anyways".
Shakily, she started to move her legs to pick the key, but he blessedly held up a hand to stop her before turning to pick it up himself. While he had his back to her, she tried, with workable success, to recover as much self-composure as possible within a short while.
When he returned, he stopped himself closer to her than before. Pam could already feel the heat of his proximity paving strange paths of desire coursing through her entire body. He held the small key up, but instead of handing it to her straightaway, he placed it on the back of his other hand and coin-walked it across the knuckles of his long pale fingers. As the key landed on his last finger, he flipped it meticulously and caught it in a grip. Taking it between his thumb and forefinger, he held it out to Pam, a stimulatingly juvenile mischief sparking in his eyes.
Spellbound at his skill and thoroughly impressed by the little show he put up, she raised a hand to receive the key, struggling to keep the trembling to a minimum.
His expression turned solemn, although there was a welcoming warmness in the manner he held out his hand as a gesture of introduction. Pam was relieved that at least one of them was leading towards something that resembled the etiquettes of normal social interaction.
"Hello, my name is Nathan Knight", he introduced himself, as he gently shook hands with Pam. Not only did the brief moment of skin contact generated jolts of electrifying sensations, but the touch felt pleasantly familiar, the reason for which is not fully inappropriate anymore. Nor did it take her by surprise when she "knew" that the curious spikes inked on the exposed side of his forearm were part of a familiar pattern, although she still could not say what it was or how it looked. She had to fight the urge with whatever little might she could muster to push the folded sleeve up his arm to reveal the whole pattern. "As if that'd explain anything", she internally rolled her eyes at herself.
"Pamela Shaw, but you can call me..." Pam observed that he almost lifted a brow at that. "I mean I prefer to be called Pam".
"Nice to meet you, Pam"
"Likewise. So do you work anywhere here?", Pam asked, gesturing towards the hospital building.
He was silent for a good few seconds, bearing an unreadable expression on his face, before gently dropping his head in what looks like a resignation and shook his head.
"Oh ok". I work here as a nurse", Pam continued, in an attempt to drag their conversation.
"Yes…I guess I know that". A galore of inquisitions crossed her face, to which he promptly responded by riveting his eyes lengthways downwards and quickly swiping up to meet her eyes, insinuating the work-wear she was so flauntingly flashing.
"It must have been a difficult week for you". He tried to make it sound like a passing comment for a presumably hardworking nurse on a Friday afternoon, but the banality never made it to his voice.
"Perhaps you should unwind and relax. Go see your mates. They must be waiting for you".
Pam felt her insides somersaulted, but before she could say anything, Nathan was already showing signs of withdrawal, hence she just nodded.
"I-I guess you're right. Nice talking to you".
"And you". Flashing a swoon-worthy smile, he turned to recoil. Pam finally got back to her bike and as she was unlocking it, she faintly heard a skilfully blown whistle melodiously tuning something which pulled at her heart-strings. Loch Lomond? "Final entertainment of the day, I guess", she thought to herself. "But instead of trying to listen to what he might be whistling, it's better to listen to him and go see the girls". She peered at her wrist watch to discover that there still was ample time to reach the tavern, although that was quite astonishing since she lost the sense of time during the whole encounter with Nathan.
"I have already leapt into the vast universe of transcendence. I am ready to uncover what place it holds for me. And for now, I should 'unwind' and 'relax'". With a new wave of determination, she sped away, ready to start her weekend.
