[ Firstly, thank you so much EBean, Ms.Mystery, Momtective & all the others for the nice comments & support last weekend. That was very kind & highly thoughtful of you, & quite welcoming indeed ! (& I have yet to figure out how to make a 'thank the poster' mention on the board here, but, Thank You !)
Have had a heck of a time though getting online the past several days. Quite frustratingly, it seemed like every time I would finally get online, my local internet server would shortly cut out. But in the interest of potentially getting some new theories & lines of inquiry out there, i'd like to audaciously perhaps, share a couple before my service goes down again (& many apologies if the following have already been raised & rehashed, but from what I can prematurely discern, perhaps not all of them have). ]
A BAD TRIP : ALL THAT IS BELOW IS MERELY A THEORY !
(New Profiles, part I)
Couldn't figure out why some of you kept going on about the shoe sizes a few days ago. I, like others, had wholly 'bought' the initial reports by certain members of the press that suggested the larger shoe to be Shantina's, which then implied the smaller one had to be Azriel's. Silly me ! Apparently, according to these early reports, Detective Mealy had even said as much. End of story. But thanks to several of you, the question of ownership of the shoes remained a topic. And my God is that important.
Looking again at the photo of the items that washed up in that one area of the beach shortly afterwards, it becomes clear that simply by the juxtaposition of the items, the larger shoe is clearly a much larger shoe! It is quite nearly the size of the bottle of wine. And while not entirely uncommon, a '13w' shoe size nearly always implies a visibly 'bigger' man, not only a taller one. My 'little' brother has the very same shoe size (only wears sneakers, natch) & he is all of 6'4 & anywhere between 235-285, depending upon his recent consumptive behavior.
Funny too, how when 1st hearing of the disappearance & seeing all of the surveillance footage showing her going in & out of several convenience stores I couldn't help but get the impression she was trying to escape from someone or something. No, she didn't appear outwardly to be that overly distraught. In fact, she seemed to present herself remarkably well in those videos (although in the 2nd is perhaps a wee bit tipsy, which means btw some wine was had in between the 2 stores). But nevertheless, to keep going in & out of mini-marts, & then attempt later to locate phones (& perhaps refuge) doesn't well describe someone who is merely out-of-sorts in some regard & utterly lost. No it relates as well to someone who is trying to flee (or chase) somebody or something. And now i'm convinced of it.
After the news mention of the bottle of wine & then relating it to my own experiences with female friends who did not act or think rationally when under the influence of pills & a little vino, etc., an explanation of simple 'misadventure' began to make sense too. But then there was the report of Shantina's behavior at the diner & once again one immediately gets the impression of her trying to evade or elude someone (or something). Yes, this all could be simply, momentary but profound confusion, perhaps even due to a 'bad drug trip'. But that's not the most likely cause, nor is it ever. I think the overwhelming instantaneous reaction for most of us to such an incident, even when considered separately, is that a person is fleeing. When we see someone suddenly shift from a stationary position to a kinetic one we see them as being compelled to move, to run. Either from something, or to something. And although a lot didn't seem to fit with this initial theory, or 'sense', & didn't hold our attention as much as it might have warranted, I think in terms of subsequent evidence it has once again become the obvious one. Frighteningly obvious.
[addendum: now, IF it turns out in fact that the 13-size refers to a child's size, & the 9 a woman's/man's size then we are not necessarily devoid of the same theories outlined below. It simply means the other qualifying determinators would have a slightly different re-ordering.]