Deja Vu

Deja vu: a feeling of having already experienced the present situation.

-Oxford Dictionary

'Deja vu describes the uncanny sensation that you've already experienced something, even when you know you never have...

I read that on a website when I was bored as heck and my friend said she had experienced deja vu.

"There's no such thing," I said and she consistently pressed on and on..."Yes, there is," "Of course there is," "I experienced it myself!" and I would just nod my head so she'd stop hurting my ears with her claims. I didn't believe her. And why would I? Why should I? Humans had the wildest theories for the most stupid things. Deja vu? Please, give me a break. There is nothing like Deja vu, you've been there before and you simply forgot, you've met him or her before-- maybe just a simple glance on a sidewalk, or a brief "Good morning". But you have had an encounter before, it was just faint in your memory, after all the human mind could discard something so easily, especially when it proved so useless.

That was what I used to think, that was my theory for the term 'Deja vu'. It didn't exist, it was just some concoction for nonsense. So why now? Why did I feel like...like I had been here before?

My co-worker—Davis—smiled at me as we entered the building but my focus wasn't on him or anyone else, it was this place. I had a vague sense of feeling, a vague sense of remembrance but I swear I hadn't been here before; I had even asked Davis about a few things on the way here. There was no way I could have ever...unless I actually had been here before, but for Pete's sake, this place just newly opened! There was no way I could've been here! Even if I'd been here before, I would've recognized a few things wouldn't I?

Melissa—another one of my colleagues gave me a little tap on the shoulder.

"you good?"

"Yeah, yeah why?"

"you look a little shaken,"

I shrugged it off "It's just the view," I lied "It's grand," yeah, grandly familiar.

she smiled and nodded "right? it's so big, Davis was right for us to go out and get a breather."

Yes, that was why we were here in the first place. We'd been working overtime in our office and one suggested we just go out, waste the night away, relieving our stress so we wouldn't end up with gray hairs earlier than scheduled. We all agreed, it would be nice to not be brainstorming over a new story for the papers. I for one was sick of that place and if I spent an hour more in there I would've thrown up, so when Davis suggested it I jumped on the idea and sweet-talked everyone into it; and here we found ourselves in a huge building full of paintings in all its grandeur, why we chose to come here I didn't know, in fact, I didn't know who suggested this place but then that was the least of my concerns.

What did concern me was the fact that I felt like I had been here before, the memory was very vague—if it is at all a memory because I'd classify this as a nostalgic feeling but I had never had one this strong. I can't remember what I was doing here the first time...if I was here.

"One day it'll happen to you," my friend said and I scoffed and let out a dry laugh

"Oh really? And how would I know that? some magical feeling?"

"I wouldn't place it as 'magical' but rather...' nostalgic'. When it happens to you, you'll just...know. Trust me, Gen, you will,"

I shrugged it off then, I wasn't going to take her words seriously. After all, they were coming from someone who was a high believer in the supernatural, needless to say, her words weren't very convincing. But now I was beginning to think otherwise because I was feeling otherwise. I was wondering how exactly did I recognize this curtain pattern? Or that vase by the Delacroix painting? Or how I felt so strangely familiar with the place I was in? It's a very usual thing to be uncomfortable when you step into a new environment, your eyes running around the area, scanning everything, drinking in the view because it interests you, admiring everything, a few looks over your shoulder to make sure no stranger is getting to close, hugging your purse to yourself, keeping to yourself and fit right into the crowd to make yourself comfortable, putting your hands in your pockets to cover your uneasiness about being in an unfamiliar place...all those things were very normal. And none of them was what I was doing.

"You seem to really enjoy this painting," A male voice said to me and he joined me to admire the piece in front of us—well, he was admiring it, I was wondering why the feeling I had got a lot stronger.

"You know, they say that if you have deja vu, you were there in your past life and you're remembering something," she would say and that was finally when I would bend over and laugh out my lungs, slapping my legs because I found it absolutely hilarious how she ate whatever stories the internet fed her.

"Is that so? Isn't your past life supposed to have been thousands of years ago? How could you possibly recognize something in this modern age, Cass?" I would ask her and she would smile

"Well that's for the universe to know and we to dot dot dot,"

"Stop believing these articles, Cass,"

"Why are you so against them?"

"Because I write, and writers lie."

Then she'd argue with me and call me the most skeptical being she'd ever come across in her entire existence, including her past lives. Well, if only she was here so after this outing I could go babble to her and she'd go up and down singing how she was right and I was wrong. If only she hadn't died...

"I guess you could say tha—" the rest of the words fled me as I looked at the person I was proceeding to make small talk with.

I was in denial before, I was a pessimist and a skeptic, an atheist if you might add. Anything that had no logical explanation wasn't valid as far as I care, everything had to have a reason, proof, a cause...but what was the explanation for this...? I had never been here before yet, I recognize this place as faint as it is in my memory...And I have never seen this man before, not a simple glance neither a simple "Good morning". Nothing about him rung a bell and yet, this memory of him was less than faint. It was almost non-existent.

Almost.

"I'm sorry," he broke the trance first "Is it just me or this feels like—"

"Deja vu," I completed, this is so crazy...so unfathomable. "I feel like we've met before...crazy right?"

"Yeah...I'm Cole," he put out his hand and I shook it

"Genesis," I said "pretty crazy night huh?" it came out as a statement and he agreed, If Cass were to be here my ears wouldn't know of it and my eyes would get stuck at the back of my head because I was rolling it too often. All night I was wondering, how I could possibly recognize a place I'd never been to in my life, I'd been traveling between the past, the present, and somewhere vaguely in between. But now, I was wondering how far I could go...

After all...this was the work of Deja vu