Déjà Vu

 

     I think I had a dream about this once.

     Blurry, like I forgot my glasses. Hanging as a thread on the edge of my mind like a reminder on a sticky note that got thrown away before it could be useful. Or maybe the forgotten lyrics of a song, teasing my distracted thoughts with only pieces and fragments of a tune, yet circling around, and around, and around. 

 

     But I do recall one thing. 

     A small detail. Insignificant, maybe, but it resonated somewhere, and this warmth on my skin again makes it seem all too familiar.

     It was obvious right away that it wasn’t lucid; no, not like my dreams usually are. Half of me found it to be a relief, and the other half was terrified of the lack of authority I would have over something that materialized out of my own mind. A dangerous thing, an untamed dream is, really.

     I don’t know how long it lasted, or how it began, but I remember a strange heat that crept up, first from my chest but then quickly down to my ankles and across my wrists until even the blood in my veins seemed ready to boil. 

     And then, there was darkness. But an abnormal one. No, it wasn’t the obscure, murky lightlessness you feel when you close your eyes and shiver. It was a balmy, cimmerian shade, tinted with hints of sangria and wine that wrapped itself around your soul. The warm, safe kind of darkness.

     I particularly remember what the darkness looked like, because it felt like a trick.

   And then there was the feeling. A strange one, unplaceable. It was similar to intense background music, like you might experience during a thriller, but without the sound. Like something bad was supposed to be happening, but the normalness of everything had an uncomfortable tone.

 

     Whether that was part of the dream, I’m not sure.

 

     Motion.

 

     I can remember that. A vehicle. A bus? I don't think I could conceptualize what it actually looked like, only what happened. 

     There was no one on the bus, or car, or whatever it was. No one, other than Piper and me, and she crooned that god-awful tune again. She always does that. 

     It struck me as odd how quiet it was. Only Piper humming. No sound of people talking or tires hitting potholes. 

     My mind silently recited the lyrics, in sequence and rhythm with her voice, the same ones that are stuck in my head right now.

 

You are my sun, you are my moon

Your love for me is plenty

I went to space to visit you

And now my heart is empty

 

     I love her, but she really has to listen to another song. 

     I turned to face her, maybe to tell her to shut the hell up, but suddenly I was hyper aware of that strange feeling again. 

     There’s something in here. Something that shouldn’t be. But I couldn’t see it.

     And then there were people. Many, many people, and there were snickers and whispers and the crinkling of packages, but I couldn’t focus on one single face. Could I even really see Piper? Did I even know any of these people at all? 

     Something dark flickered in a corner. But then something else caught my eye on the right, and all at once it was everywhere. Seeping into this place through the cracks in the windows and out of mouths and ears and through the spaces between every atom.

     Did no one else notice this? Piper was gone and so was everyone else, and so I was left by myself to observe the dark.

     The same dark as earlier, the warm one, but it now had a fluid consistency to it, almost like liquid gold. Slow flowing, and once it reached my skin, it burned like gold too.

     My lack of vision remained with the heat until the darkness dissolved into its opposite. 

 

     White.

 

     I would have said the walls looked bleached, but there were no walls. Rather, another void, but this time it was a blinding light that flooded through your veins and into your soul, and not only that, but it was cold. A raw kind of chill, the kind that burns, and much worse than heat ever could. 

     It’s hard to tell where things are when you have no sense of direction, but I guess I turned around or something because a dark figure materialized into my view.

 

     I’m just… not sure what it was.

     I could describe it as a person, or a human-like thing, but that’s really not what it was. Yes, it resembled one. It stood on two legs, but it shouldn’t have been able to stand - everything about it was stretched vertically and its arms and legs ended in sharp points, not in feet or hands. The arms settled stiffly next to the lengthy torso, but they didn’t stop until long past where the knees should have been.

     It kind of looked like a badly drawn stick figure that had lost its sense of weight and proportion.

   What disturbed me were the eyes. Just plain white dots that rested a third of the way up the oval head. But what was remarkable was this thing’s entire lack of depth. You could have cut it out on the blackest sheet of construction paper you could find, using a hole puncher for the eyes, and they would have been identical. 

      But nothing about it was threatening. Intimidating, yes, but there was nothing inherently creepy. 

     There was that strange feeling again, though. Like something bad should be happening, but isn’t. Like I should be scared, but I had no evident reason to be scared. 

     Maybe that was because it looked familiar.

 

     “Do I know you?” I said, approaching it cautiously.

     I waited.

     “Possibly,” The voice echoed. It was without tone or emotion, neither masculine nor feminine. “Probably. Do you know yourself?”

     “Sure. More than you do, I assume.”

     I waited.

     Is it possible to hear a smirk? 

     I waited. It just kind of floated there. 

 

     “Your future is more familiar than you think.”

 

     “I already knew that.” A lie on my part.

     “I know you did.”

     “What do you want me to do with this knowledge?”

 

     It was suddenly closer. Very, very close. Close enough to see that its eyes were the same white as the space around me, and its flesh the same warm darkness as when the dream started. But it wasn’t standing still as I had thought. It was pulsing. So subtle, I shouldn’t have been able to see it, but its outline quietly expanded, shrunk, expanded, shrunk, ever so slightly.

 

     And this time, the voice was barely above a whisper.

     “Just a heads up.” 

 

     It expanded so much it engulfed my vision, and I was left awake, with only the delicate thud of my own heartbeat to stop me from screaming at full volume.

 

     And now I’m sitting on the bus with a terrible sense of déjà vu, except I know exactly where I’ve experienced this before. 

     There was a gentle thumping of tire against road and a chorus of voices and laughter from each seat, and Piper was right next to me, humming her stupid little tune.

 

You are my sun, you are my moon

Your love for me is plenty 

I went to space to visit you

And now my heart is empty

 

     I might punch her. But I really don’t have the chance to, because an overwhelming awareness of each lyric absorbs my other thoughts.

     Suddenly they are no longer innocent but instead have a grisly significance.

 

You are my sun, you are my moon

 

     The bus careens sideways.

 

Your love for me is plenty

 

     My head hits the roof and I can't breath.

 

I went to space to visit you

 

     My head is hot. So, so hot. But my hands are cold. Freezing.

 

     My eyes are the only ones open, and I’m laying on a window below me. Below? Piper. She stopped humming. I wish she didn’t. 

     I can see it billowing out again, like in the dream. The warm, liquid darkness. It’s coming from everywhere, all at once.

     Liquid gold. But this time it doesn’t burn. It doesn’t really feel like anything at all, actually.

     I think it might be the start of another dream, but then I know it’s not, because it doesn’t continue.

 

And now my heart is empty