03/06/2013

As the fog in front of my eyes cleared, head feeling heavy, like those early Saturday mornings after drowning my sorrows in the multiple glasses of fragrant scotch an evening before, a voice I haven’t heard in a decade tickled my ears.

“Remember, you only have one more week to apply to university of your choosing, and get ready for entrance exams or you’ll have to wait until next year!”

What the actual…

Familiar faces, smells, overwhelming my senses. That’s my homeroom teacher talking, these are my buddies from school. Everyone is so young.

The heavy slap on my back snapped me out of it.

“Man, you look a little lost, you okay?”

The young dark skinned boy in front of me was my best friend, my best man at my wedding. With crackling voice, loud, he stood there smiling, his pearly white teeth contrasting his skin. My hands quickly flew to him, hugging him firmly, fingertips exploring every nook and cranny of his face. I would recognize those sharp facial lines and that charcoal black hair even if I were suffering from late stage Alzheimer’s,.

“Bro, did you turn gay over night or something?”

Tears begun to form, threatening to burst out like Yellowstone geysers, but a quick swipe of the hand managed to hide just enough not to be noticed. My late best friend was right there in front of me.

“Alex…” My voice betrayed me as my knees begun to shake. Tongue wrestled with the lips, trying to form words, letting out just some alien sounds.

Seemingly unfazed by my inordinary behavior he smiled. “Come on, lets go home, we got a date with those two hotties later.” He glanced at two attractive girls standing at the door waving at us. “We gotta get ready.”

I followed without a word. Confusion gripped me like a baby grips its toys, memories of the walk home streaming into my consciousness. The stone on the street in front of us? He is about to kick it down the road.

“I miss how we used to play soccer together.” Stone flew good few feet before stopping. “Are you sure doctors can’t do anything else about your knee?”

“Hey I am talking to you Jake!” He was now getting visibly worried, his jet black eyes trying to pierce into me. I must have wandered off again. Something I was prone to doing in my youth, but this time I guess it was different if it warranted a reaction from usually laid back Alex.

“Yeah, they said the ligaments will never be the same again.” The same reply I gave to him all those years ago.

“What are you gonna do about uni then?” he sighed. “Did you even try studying anything? Or did you just focus on sports?”

Even though the experience is the same, it still stung like the first time, waking up the feelings I had buried out long time ago. I had all my hopes put on a sports scholarship, and it all disappeared in an instant, remaining a fleeting dream of a young boy.

“Yeah, I studied some math and statistics, guess I’ll settle for an office job”.

Truth is, long ago I gave this answer as a joke. The uni I ended up in was in relation to social studies and languages, just by sheer luck I happened to have a knack for data analysis and math and managed to land a job in that area. I never liked it.

“By the way, we passed your house”

I turned around and there it was, my place. Grey, with a red stripe in the middle where two floors meet each other. The same place I still live in with my wife. I wonder if she’ll be in this dream. If this is a dream at all. It feels so real, vivid, almost suffocating.

“Later!” Alex waved and left. I wanted to stop him, but how do I even explain to him that he is dead. Not like it matters, this can’t be real anyway.

I stepped into the house, the door groaning at its hinges, swollen from the relentless summer humidity.

“Don’t forget to wash your feet before you sit at the table!”

That was a phrase my mom loved repeating every day after I came home. After eight hours in the same shoes, the smell isn’t pleasant, but I am so hungry, so I just stomach it.

Why am I even hungry in a dream though?

Still, I went to the bathroom to clean myself. The messy silk like hair that refused to get straightened, especially at one place at the top, sticking out like a horn.

Why did I wait so long to start cutting it shorter?

I gazed into my own eyes, green, turning yellow under certain lighting. This was undoubtedly me in the mirror. The same nose, slightly leaning to the left, the pear shaped head, sunken eyes. I was just eleven years younger. I slowly picked up the razor from the shelf.

“This can’t be real, there is no way.” I said out loud as I ran the razor over my finger. “Fu… It hurts”

Blood slowly dripped from the tip of my finger into the sink, forming a little pool of blood I stared into. The pain didn’t bother me, it felt like a distant memory that sometimes stings you, almost unnoticeable like a mosquito. I was more bothered by the fact I even experienced pain.

“Jake, other people need to use the bathroom too!”

“Yeah, sure dad, I’ll be right out.”

And I was. Stumbling to the common room like a drunkard, absorbed in my circumstances.

“Hey guys, do you mind if I go hit the bed for a bit?”

Mom’s lips curved into a sour smile, her eyes shooting knives at me and given the great smelling food on the table it’s not hard to figure out why, a lot effort was put into it “Okay, but you’ll have to eat this for a dinner then!”

“Yeah, no problem.”

My room was the same as back then. Full of trophies and medals, laid out on the oak shelf my dad purchased on some yard sale. It reeked of cigarette smoke, the layers of dried paint and coating slowly dripping down to floor only to be strewn all across the house once I inevitably step on it. Emotions overwhelmed me again. I threw all of this into the trash long time ago, and now it’s here again to remind me of what could have been.

I am just going to close my eyes real quick and everything will be back to normal. Or abnormal.

I chuckled to myself at that depressing joke.

The phone ringing woke me up. It was a familiar tune, but I couldn’t remember it, at least not until spotting the phone itself. It was the old device my parents barely scrapped by to buy me, that was relatively modern so I don’t feel completely out of the place among friends.

It was Alex.

“Hey dude, are you coming?”

“Coming where?” I asked, having no idea what he was talking about.

“Date? With two girls from today?”

I completely forgot. As moments from the date in the past popped into my head one by one, I almost said I don’t want to go. It was as monotone as my work. But it was a chance to spend more time with him, “I’ll be right there man, overslept.”

He hung up as I was getting dressed. It was so long I couldn’t remember which of the five piles of clothes were clean and which were dirty, so one by one I grabbed shirts and smelled them. My parents fell asleep in each other’s arms. My heart tightened a bit, remembering how this rarely if ever happened with my love. After thirty years of marriage the spark between them was still there, shining like a lighthouse in the dark.

Panic was slowly settling into me. Here I was, thirty year old man going out on a date with barely eighteen year old girls. It’s feels so wrong.

I looked one more time in the mirror. Surely this has got to be a dream. I had to make sure just one more time. Pinching myself and feeling the pain. The reality of what was happening slowly started sinking in. I am actually eighteen again. Logic, reason, everything flew out of the window. The amount of time spent daydreaming about going back and fixing things, granted not this far into the past, was astronomical.

What am I even supposed to do?

Every thought of mine was fixated on what was the end goal. Especially at this point in time. There was nothing eventful happening in my life when I was eighteen. Am I just to live the life again like I already did?

Stepping into the coffee shop, my ears were immediately overwhelmed by the lively chatter of a sea of people occupying every table. Snippets of conversations floated through the air�"mundane discussions about dating, planning parties, and upcoming dates. The familiar buzz created a sense of coziness. As my eyes scanned the stuffy room for Alex and the girls, a hand suddenly shot up between the bobbing heads, signaling the corner they had chosen.

“Sorry I am late, I overslept a bit.”

“Not a good first impression.” The blonde with blue eyes said, while her friend chuckled. Alex always picked the girls that were physically complete opposite of him.

Turning to face the other girl, green, large eyes, brown hair. Quite beautiful, but she had no personality. Then again we both were mostly there for our friends, and I never tried to get to know her on some deeper level. As the date went on I found myself falling into the familiar patterns of boredom, the random talk of childish past events, none of which I found interesting reminded me why the date was so boring the first time around.

“This one time in elementary…”

Those words grabbed my attention. Alex and I went to different elementary schools, so this couldn’t be another anecdote from our time spent together. And then it hit me, something she told me after Alex died. She went to the same school as him, a year younger. As I patted my pants trying to locate my phone, I fished it out of my pocket and went to social networks. My fingertips felt sweatier than usual fumbling over keys trying to type in her name in the search bar, mistyping every other letter, until her profile finally popped out. Scrolling through it I felt a little egg of happiness forming as I confirmed it was indeed her.

“Do you know her?” I asked. I could feel the excitement bubbling up inside me, like a pot on the verge of boiling over with anticipation.

“Yeah, barely, she was younger right?”

I nodded, if I am back in the past, then so is she. Or rather I can meet her past self. The smile that escaped me caused clear disgust to manifest on my dates face, after all I was there to keep her company and yet I am ignoring her to talk about another girl. But I didn’t care. I found hope I haven’t felt in so long.

Is it really okay? I may be young again, but mentally I am so much older. I have all these experiences that she is yet to have. She’s not even close to the same person I know. And was I really brought back for such a selfish reason?

Losing myself in thought didn’t sit well with my companions. Even Alex seemed somewhat annoyed. I felt that gut feeling of sadness showing up again.

“Guys I am really not feeling all that well,” I said as I was getting up “I’ve been out of it whole day, so I am gonna go hit the bed early.”

It didn’t take me long to reach home, as I walked by countless street lights, my eyes glued to my phone with a dumbest smile on my face. The fact that this is now my life, or rather that I am repeating my past was now given. The doubt that now that I accepted it, and maybe found a reason why, would cause me to wake up to ugly reality again was strong. After all I fell down the stairs, I probably hit my head. Maybe I am in a coma. Maybe I died and this is a test before I go to Hell or Heaven. So many uncertainties.

But what if?

What if this really is the reason. If she was really the one and destiny is correcting itself. Do I even deserve this chance? What if I am supposed to make it right with my wife?

But I knew, I never loved my wife like I loved her. Thinking back, I don’t think there was ever that spark between us, we just came from fucked up backgrounds trying to lead normal life, fell into routine far too quickly. We were simply not compatible.

Why would I do that to either of us again? That can’t be why I am here.

I quickly grabbed my phone and typed.

“Alex, I decided what I am going to do about uni!”