Deja Vu

“Do you ever get deja vu?” It was a simple question, but sometimes the most simple ones are the hardest to answer.

Rita tensed her shoulders, “I don’t like talking about things that don’t make sense.”

Luca, her little brother groaned, “Why do you always have to be so boring?”

She laughed, “I’m definitely not boring,” while looking in her bedroom mirror correcting her eyeliner. “I’m the most authentic person you’ll find.” 

Luca turned to leave, “Whatever, Rita.”

Luca was on a search. For only being eight, his mind was filled with uncontrollable curiosity. At first, the Johnson family thought this was ‘cute’. Soon after, he became a tyrant with his questions.

The more he asked, the more they couldn’t answer.

Their mom would just glance up from her laptop and shrug, “Sorry sweetie, I don’t know. Ask your teacher, why don’t you?” 

But asking a question in class was the scariest thing Luca could face at eight.

“Ask my teacher? Are you crazy? Everyone will laugh at me.” He said in defeat.

She looked down at her computer, “I have a call in 20, ask your father.”

And so the cycle began. A never-ending cycle it seemed, at least to the Johnson family.

But today was different. That’s what Luca kept reminding himself, otherwise his search would be all-for-not. 

He glanced down at his notebook seeing a list of questions that needed an answer. Someone had to know, right? 

“You ready, Luca?” Rita called from upstairs. 

“I’m gonna beat you to the b-u-s!” He said in a sing-songy tune. 

There she came walking down the stairs with her backpack. “Nu-uh, I’m driving you.” She rolled her eyes, “Luca, seriously, we talked about this.”

He looked down at his shoes, “But how am I going to make friends on the second week of school?” His eyes filled with tears making Rita want to run away for her life.

“You’re going to be a big boy today. You’re in third grade, man up.” She said, patting him on the back.

He looked up at her with tears brimming, “Can you walk me to Mrs. Thea’s classroom?”

She nodded, “Yep, yep, just hop in the car, okay?”

He nodded, wiping his tears off his face.

“Good,” She finally felt inner peace. 

After Luca was successfully dropped off manually at the door, he didn’t have any tears left to cry.

“Mrs. Thea….” He said slowly, afraid of what she would say.

“Yes, Luca?” She said with a smile.

“I wanted to ask you something.”

She nodded, waiting.

“Can I go to the bathroom?”

She nodded, “Here’s the bathroom pass.”

He shook his head remembering what Rita told him. “I gotta be a big boy today,” he said quietly to himself.

There he took initiative, “I actually wanted to ask you something else. What is a deja vu?”

She looked thoughtful for a second.

Instead of brushing his question to the side like so many other times by other people, she acknowledged him. 

“That is a really good question, Luca. I think the other students should learn something new today too. Can you repeat that to the class?”

He timidly looked over his shoulder and gulped. “Wa-wa-what is a deja vu?” 

She then patted him on the back, “I’m so proud of you,” she said quietly. “I knew you could do it.” 

Instead of letting his fear of the stage take over, she helped him reach a new point of confidence. 

“Now, to answer your question, your brain recognizes a memory and kind of twists it to think you’ve been in the situation before. Basically, in a simpler version, that’s what a deja vu is.”

He nodded, “Oh, okay.” Then his mind went running, “Which part of the brain?”

Thea laughed, “Really, Luca, why do you want to know?”

He smiled, “Because I want to compare it to a jamais vu.”

She looked confused, “The what?”

“It’s the opposite of what a deja vu is. If I got all the information about one of them, then maybe I could figure out what a jamais vu is.”

Thea laughed, “Luca, maybe you need to use the internet.”

He shook his head frantically, “People are better. Then I can ask more questions.”

“You know, you can just search all the questions you want in Google, right?”

“What’s that?”

…

Finally, the day was over. With his backpack in hand after getting out of the car, he looked over at Rita in exhaustion. 

“What is it now?” She said with a groan.

“Oh, I didn’t want anything.” He sighed, was he going to always be a loner? 

As they walked up to the porch, Rita put her keys in the slot. He turned around to the yard, deciding not to go in.

“You sure you don’t want to come in now?”

He shook his head, “Not right now.”

He admired the grass, the trees, the sunset, but something else caught his eye. 

A new neighbor.

But this neighbor was not ordinary. It was a girl that looked the same age. Her curly hair wisps whipped across her face and she smiled, “Are you Luca?” She said giggling. 

He nodded, not knowing what to say. 

“Are you going to say something?”

He nodded again. “What’s your name?”

She smiled, “You can call me Tara. My parents were talking to your mom earlier, and I heard that they had a son named Luca. Guessing that’s you.” 

He nodded, “Yeah that’s me.” He was still in awe, looking at her freckled face.

“Can you answer a question for me?”

“Yeah, what is it?”

“What’s a deja vu?”

...

Thank you so much for reading my story! I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I enjoyed writing it. Sometimes a simple plot can get you a long way to finding a story. If you have any feedback let me know (please be kind!). We're all here to lift each other up, not bring each other down. Ja?

Good luck everyone on your writing adventures💛

Aubrey Maria✌