A Window on the Past

By Marc Chomel

Sherlock, an egocentric businessman in Los Angeles in 2011, is about to fire his secretary, Sophie. But when he walks into an elevator in the skyscraper he works in, he finds himself travelling back in time to the moment when the first plane is about to hit World Trade Center One on September 9, 2001. His actions during the tragedy in the famous Windows on the World restaurant transform him into a man who is caring and heroic.
This gripping story is about those people who were left to die, and how an interloper from the future succeeded in saving a few. It is, most importantly, about the brave efforts of those who struggled to save the people in the towers, and the challenges they faced on this horrible day in New York City.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Apr 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781398458758

Marc Chomel

Marc Chomel is a veteran prosecutor from Texas and California, who has previously published a collection of short stories involving his experience in the criminal field of law, as well as his experiences during his travels to foreign countries. He is a first generation American, raised in a European household and speaks both French and Italian fluently. Many of the reviews of his book have commented that many of his short stories involve elements of science fiction and magic realism. He is strongly influenced by South American writers, notably Garcia Marquez and Llosa. His experience after the World Trade Center attacks are the foundation for this story about time travel.

Book preview

About the Author

Marc Chomel is a veteran prosecutor from Texas and California, who has previously published a collection of short stories involving his experience in the criminal field of law, as well as his experiences during his travels to foreign countries. He is a first generation American, raised in a European household and speaks both French and Italian fluently. Many of the reviews of his book have commented that many of his short stories involve elements of science fiction and magic realism. He is strongly influenced by South American writers, notably Garcia Marquez and Llosa. His experience after the World Trade Center attacks are the foundation for this story about time travel.

Dedication

To the families and survivors of the attacks on the World Trade Center, on September 11, 2001.

Copyright Information ©

Marc Chomel 2022

The right of Marc Chomel to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398458734 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398458741 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781398458758 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2022

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Sherlock

Jonathan Sherlock was your average man who had an above-average opinion of himself. He toiled as the vice-president of a mortgage foreclosure division of a bank in Los Angeles where he supervised the approval and denial of loans and the foreclosure of mortgages like a Roman emperor whose thumb direction ruled the lives of gladiator slaves. Thumbs up! You had a house and a life; thumbs down, you lost your house, your credit, and every iota of respectability that you had fought for. Sherlock was ruthless; he gave defaulters a thirty-day window, and on day 31, the documents of repossession would be filed. He had worked diligently at an office on the 54th floor of the Los Angeles Plaza Building, an eighties eyesore that resembled a dusty and tall air conditioning vent that looked out onto the San Gabriel Mountain Range like a giant used toothbrush. Sherlock ruled over forty employees of different levels, from secretaries to aspiring mortgage brokers, with an iron fist. His problem of exactitude was the central crack in his armor; he never married, he had no friends, and he was widely despised at the workplace. He hired with trepidation, and he fired with glee.

The fear he instilled in the workforce was a function of his dark and menacing look. He sported a strange bristly black moustache that matched the coarse brillo-like eyebrows that framed his unhappy countenance. Woe was he who made a misstep in the valuation of a property or conducted a less than thorough credit investigation. If your head didn’t roll, you were assured a scorching hour of rabid verbal humiliation before embarking on a dicey grant of probation where every decision was microscopically examined as Sherlock waited like a shark to terminate you.

Today, January 5th, 2011, was a banner day. Sherlock had just made senior vice president and moved into the elegant corner office he had been circling like a vulture ever since his boss Brian Forrester had an aneurysm. Sherlock had surmised he wouldn’t last a week and had started boxing his files and mementos the following weekend. Unfortunately, Forrester didn’t go quietly, and much to Sherlock’s chagrin it took him weeks to die. There was the momentary recovery, followed by a debilitating stroke, and once all the obligatory hospital visits, prayers and vigils had come and gone, once the ad hoc meetings of replacing Forrester had taken place, once Sherlock was assured of the position, Forrester expired.

Sherlock was up at five a.m. hanging diplomas. By the time 6:00 a.m. rolled around, the layout of the few bits of office furniture, including the opulent leather couch, had been reconfigured, so that Sherlock could make this his own office. He intended to stay here for some time, or at least until there was another opening upward in the chain. Sherlock experienced something of a rush looking through the glassed angle of his corner window; up there on 54, he could see Chinatown on the right and the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion on the left. He instantly enjoyed his visual kingdom; from here he could pretend to own mountains, Chinese restaurants, and a music center. He watched momentarily as the traffic – tiny vehicles like a child’s match cars – wended its way up to Grand Avenue, speeding, honking like temperamental red-ear turtles, buzzing along on life’s everyday business.

The first order of the day was to fire Sophie. Even Sherlock was weak-kneed when it came to letting pretty young ladies go; it wasn’t misplaced sympathy for the predicament of looking for work that he would throw her into; it was telling the daughter that he never had that her presence would no longer grace the walls of the firm. He would miss her, but she had to go. In Sophie’s case, she was an assistant administrator that seemed to go apoplectic every time a decision had to be made. She was constantly taking personal time off, and it seemed that after five years, the company was, in officious parlance, not a good fit. Whenever she walked into an executive office, she was scatter-brained, tongue-tied, and unable to cope.

Sophie was attractive and a youngish twenty-six and would undoubtedly survive. She was a transplant from the northeast, and probably needed to work in a smaller family-run franchise, where the stakes were not so big. But apparently, working with the big boys in a company that spanned five floors of a downtown skyscraper was a bit overwhelming. The problem had gotten worse when the company expanded and moved from the third to the fifty-fourth floor. She was constantly late, unable to relay simple messages from clients, and hours were spent locating files she had misplaced, with costly consequences.

She walked in 10 minutes past the appointed time of 7:15 a.m., and Sherlock had already paced the floors of his office five times. When she popped her head in and said a sheepish, Good morning, Mr. Sherlock, Sherlock’s mind pounced.

Sophie, do you wear a watch? You know, the wristband with the Mickey Mouse hand that points to an hour, and the little one that points to a minute?

Sir? She looked down at the new carpet, examining its floral motif.

Because if you did, you probably wouldn’t know how to read it. When people say five o’clock or midnight or say, 7:15 in the morning, that means ‘hey! At 7:16, I have to be doing something else’. Like this thing, we call work, which means a client conference call, a bank meeting, a call to a real estate attorney. You see, I was supposed to do those very things in these last ten minutes, but I couldn’t because I was waiting for you. He emphasized with slow relish, the word ‘waiting’.

I am sorry, the elevators took forever.

"Yes, I know. And you know. And LA traffic is a bitch. I know and you know. And I am