Thoughts While Smoking:

Deja vu

Parallel Universes

Reincarnation

true story in the life and times of smalls . Other names besides my own have been changed. This is a true story.

by Sarah Young

From the moment my shoe hit the tarmac outside of Los Angeles International Airport, I had begun experiencing a strange overwhelming sense of Deja vu. It was slightly different though. The best way I could describe this notion is to say that it felt like I had been walking in a similar fashion, spacially over aware… almost an overwhelming sense of familiarity. As if I had walked, if not the same path, but one adjacent to the one I was walking.

They say that Deja vu is the feeling of experiencing something that you have in actuality only experienced for the first time that time. This was not what I was sensing. It got so detailed that I ended up knowing exactly where my friend had placed her cameras in her home without having ever been there before, never mind the fact that I had never been to the state of California prior to this trip. What it had felt like though, was that I had in fact definitely been there before. I absolutely was familiar with her home, the area and it kept happening with every curb, every street , every item in her home. And it kept going. Back outside, I would walk in any direction away from her place and know exactly where I was and how to get back. My sense of direction was on point in the strangest way. You’d think that coming from Massachusetts on a 6 hour flight to Los Angeles would have thrown off my sense of direction and timing. Especially with the 3 hour time difference. But I wasn’t even jet lagged.

One night we were walking down to Santa Monica pier from her apt in Long Beach . It was about a 20 min walk from where she was on 3rd and Ocean. We had started our journey just before sundown and when we reached the pier the ferris wheel was fully lit and you could hear drunk people laughing and screaming as it jerked back and forth upon stopping and starting again. We approached a path way that had shrubbery located to the right side and noticed feet poking out onto the sidewalk. I stopped, pointed and said,

“ Oh, my god! I hope that’s not a dead body.”

She shrugged. The city of LA must have hardened my friend to find this to be amongst common occurrence. 

I broke her lack of concern with a question hesitating at first but then fully directed at the feet.

“Hey!…. Man?!……. You okay in there?!”

No answer. My next move (due to my lack of a stick), was to use my shoe insteadz

“Shhhh!” She hissed,

This stopped my wind up .My next stop on the train of thought was placing a call to 911. The locomotive thought shuttered to a halt. Its mettle wheels grinding harshly. Shaving steel shrapnel off the tracks 9f my mind, revealing the shiny metal under the rust. The grinding of the locomotives wheels spewed the sharp excess off the tracks inside my brain. The thought machine suddenly began to reverse. Some unknown force pulled the man from the shrubbery upward. Bringing him to his feet, like a marionette on a tangled system of string supported by an invisible hand that jutted out from the warm dark sky above. 

The man sprung to his feet, Revealing his dirty and unkept appearance . It was a vagrant or one might call him a traveler. He was definitely alive, deshevveled and dirty. His eyes were piercing blue. But his demeanour pleasant and friendly. He greeted us and offered us some shots of whiskey that was bottled into mini patron tequila bottles. We accepted his gracious offer, (though in hindsight probably not the smartest idea). ——Never take anything you don’t see opened in front of you. Especially from strangers. Especially if that stranger is passed out in bush. ——do as I say not as I do.——

The three of us put back the whiskey with ease. It tasted well like whiskey which is not very good but non the less it was smooth for having just come out of a vagrants pocket in the wrong liquor bottles.

“McAllen’ he said

Smacking his lips over what was left of his teeth. He formed a tiny “o” with his mouth as he exhaled the burn. 

“Good year! … I’m sorry, I’ve been rude…

“What’s your name?”,

He extended his arm and gestured open handed to my friend. Who jumped back a little when he did so. She was beautiful but awkward a bit younger than I , and all legs. She smiled

“Ella” she replied. 

“Is that short for Ariella?” He inquired further. She began to answer,

“Yes but…how…?”

The puzzlement that broached her small brow was fraught with panic. As if someone had done a magic trick she couldn’t logically explain right in front of her. Her eyes widened in disbelief . Her name was fairly uncommon and for the man to guess that straight off being told her nickname was in fact impressive he interrupted her before she could continue. Staunching her bewilderment with his next question or I should say statement. As he turned to me he said,

“And Sarah, it’s important to understand this feeling you’ve had since you’ve arrived here in LA .You would say it’s your first time here but you still can’t shake this feeling..”

“What feeling? ” I hesitantly asked .

As I uttered those words it was almost as if they where a magical charm or a spell. They evoked, again that same feeling he had just mentioned mentioned. It crawled its way back into my gut. As I could tell where he was going with this conversation and I was not at all fond of where his thought train was headed next. Its course would sent it heading to a certain impending collision with mine. Ella and I got closer and braced for impact.The man smiled and as his lips curled from ear to hear he uttered these words. As he began to speak , suddenly a second man of whole I was entirely unaware of. Who One can only assume was his travelling partner, slowly rose from the depths of the shrubbery. The second man once fully erect , but hunching and older, giggled with an eerie gurgle in his throat. 

The first man said, 

“You and her are the same but different. like she is you , and you are her. you are tall and she is short you are blonde and you are brown, and you walk parallel paths in the same direction”

The second man chimed in

“but only for here and now what was then and there…it’s kinda like…”

The first man and I then unified in the last two words,

“… DEJA VU”

Ella broke off from me and started to walk briskly up the path right by the two men. I stood still… shocked and in awe hanging on every word that man just said . 

“Sare!” Ella exclaimed

”SARAH!” Again.

Her voice trembled and rang through the salty air. The second exclamation of my birth given name struck me harder than a slap to the face.It was more like a body shot. My neck snapped turning my head in her direction. She was past the second man, up the path. she was already a few clicks ahead of me hugging herself and looking fearful of what had just transpired. I pushed by the strangers to follow her up the path. Turning back only to say,

“Sorry.. thank you for the shots…”

I joined my friend up ahead of the two vagabonds. we stayed silent as we walked onward towards the pier, looking forward and deep in thought. The tension was staggering. I struggled to keep up with her. I broke the silence,

“How did he know that?”,

She was utterly baffled also… The man had piercing blue eyes. So so did his cohort. But how did he know that I had never been to LA before? How did he know I was feeling and experiencing that stifling overwhelmingly complex spacial reincarnation. The Deja vu? Something that Ella put forth as an even better question.

“Sarah? How did he know my full first name? No one has ever guessed my full first name. ….and even weirder….how did he know YOUR name? You never said it…. nor did I …”

When she said that I turned, enraged thinking some creep had been stalking us, or something. I had made a few posts on social media about my trip… maybe.. no… but the internet is a vast place and maybe? By the time I had began to have this notion I looked up and back to the set of shrubs on the path. I thought to grab this weirdo by the throat and feed him a good peice of my mind and deliver a stern line of questioning. The path was empty. They were both gone. Like they had never even been there at all in the first place. 

To this day I cannot explain any of that interaction. Only to say I’ve encountered these blue eyes beings since and they always leave me feeling a little more complete. like a small part of the puzzle that we all struggle to exist in, as we conceptualise the mysteries of the world around us. That which we can and can’t see but more importantly what we can’t explain or describe but only can feel. We all live to try to fit our prices together with other prices we find along the way or other pieces we find in other people.

We’re given an uncertain deadline… to complete as much as we can before we pass on. And almost like a sick ironic conclusion to our stories what we go on to is part of that puzzle and only after we’re gone does that price get put into place for us. By the things we where never going to see. Maybe when we die we don’t go on at all. Maybe we just recycle as that final peice? Go back? Relive? Experience life starting from a different unknown but walking the same track. Traveling in a parallel pathway paved with more clues to where we will go to next.

“ To see a world in a grain of sand a heaven in a wildflower, to hold infinity in the palm of your hand, an eternity in an hour…. “

William Blake