Déjà Vu – A Work of Fiction

I’m shuffling in a line on the sidewalk downtown. Most of the cracks I’ve seen before and the sounds from the streets form that familiar soundtrack. Yet, today I’m heading to a lunch meeting with a colleague. I’m not sure who is to buy lunch this time. Thinking back to the last time we were together at the airport for lunch and there is a vague image of throwing down the debit card. It must be her turn today.

I’m early, way early, so I sit on the bench a few feet down from the restaurant with it’s generic, faux brick façade and black awning over the entrance. I people watch.

A couple college students appear around a corner wearing the most dressed down apparel allowed in public. They hold hands and wander by. She glances down at me with an equal assessment of my work clothes of grey dress slacks and a black, mock turtle neck with the company logo and my dull, black shoes in need of a shine. I watch myself walk by in the likeness of her boyfriend; faded jeans, ripped; extra large t-shirt on a medium sized body; sandals; and hair unkempt like he just woke up from a late night studying. Students. It is late-summer in California after all. I watch them slide into the tavern down the way, oblivious to anything else but the agenda of a beer on a Thursday afternoon and a chance to enjoy time on a slower pace than the working world.

A young couple comes to the corner. The husband is pushing a stroller and the little wheels aren’t handling the terrain very well. In fact, he pushes it into a crack crashing the baby forward and justifying the need for front-side airbags. The wife bitches and berates the husband who handles both the berating and the change in the sidewalk with a sense of evenhanded calm. He isn't a rookie and quickly changes the subject pointing to the sandwich shop across the street. He found their destination. He glances my direction and gives me that male silent head butt of recognition that guys do after they inadvertently make eye contact. I smile back in immediate understanding.

A man I recognize from somewhere comes zipping around the corner. He is talking on the cell phone. He wears the uniform that all appropriate professionals of about 40 something dress in California; khaki pants and a polo-style shirt. He is hyper with business but stops, still talking, to drop two quarters into the slot and pull out a local paper. He folds it under his arm and continues walking down the street. He looks at me in similar recognition, waves cordially, mouths a hello, and rushes away having never stopped deliberating with the voice on the other end of the phone. I take a deep breath and wave a belated hello with two fingers in response to his backside. He's already onto the next thing. He disappears into a stairwell leading up to some offices.

I spread my fingers wide on my thighs. My hands are a bit sweaty. Flipping them over the lines in my palms look exaggerated and scarred. What was and is has merged into a question.

“Hellooooo, Mud?”

My collegue is standing squarely in front of me with a quizzical expression waving her arms to get my attention. I’ve been staring at my hands and probably looking lost and deranged.

“Hi there! Sorry, I was ... uhm ... remembering something I might have forgotten. Or didn’t forget. Or ... Both ... How are you?”

We saunter into the tavern. Lunch was then uneventful and unrecognizable.