Chapter 7

7

It feels like waking up after a four-day binge of drinking alone. The disorientation, the scattered thoughts, the teetering of reality. A de-ja-vu gathered in the pit of your stomach, alcohol pulsating throughout the veins, vomit collecting in the back of the throat, dehydration sticking the tongue to the roof of the mouth. Pitifully I gasp for air as the familiar surroundings swirl through my head. This is the point in which I would normally prop myself against the kitchen counter, struggling to put on a pot of coffee. But I am not in my kitchen; I am not stumbling through my house. I am not in hospitable surroundings.

Yet, I have been here before. Something filters through the confusion just long enough to incite recollection and then is gone again, like recalling your childhood through olfactory hues. But I haven't been here before have I? This parking lot isn't familiar, nor the row of similar looking buildings with giant, screaming, florescent signs proclaiming autonomy.

The ambulance's sirens have quieted now. The paramedics have made their way onto the bus, collecting the body onto the gurney, covering the old woman's face with a sheet, and are now in the process of rolling her decrepit body away. The young woman is standing ten steps away from me. I can still smell her perfume as we silently watch in disbelief.

She reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a small, silver contraption. She pushes the buttons on the face of the mechanism and then places it up to her ear. A conversation begins; there is a familiarity in her hello. Her words dull as the sirens awake, announcing the paramedics’ departure. Her conversation is drowning like my peace of mind.

I have been here before, but not here. This is not a familiarity as much as a gut feeling. It is as if I were returning to my hometown after a twenty-year absence only to find that the house I had grown up in has been demolished and replaced with a gas station. I might be able to locate the spot where I buried my favorite childhood toy, but unfortunately it is now covered with pavement. The tree that I used to climb now resembles a billboard and the air I used to breathe now smells of petroleum.

Her voice trails off to a goodbye and the phone goes back into her pocket. She looks at me, looking at her. We stand in silence.

She too is familiar, like the landscape behind this shopping complex. My eyes trace the contours of her lips, which are slightly parted, gripping the remnants of her conversations. I feel as if I've felt, tasted, tongued those lips before, but once again, I remain unsure. She turns away from my stare.

Her hand dips back into her jacket pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. She takes one, lights it, inhales and exhales the smoke. I realize, once the smell hits my nose, that I haven't had a cigarette in what seems like years. I quickly fill my lungs with the second hand pleasure, and I crave, yearn, for the nicotine. I feel myself speaking out, breeching my inner monologue.

"May I have one of those?" I quietly plead.

"Sure," she replies, faintly smiling while digging back into her pocket.