Déjà Vu
They always say that just before you die, your life flashes before your eyes.
Everyone has their own idea of what it is. Some people think it's just a quick highlight reel, some think it's more of a mundane fly by, like flipping through a novel skimming pages and headings without much consideration or differentiation for notable elements vs the filler.
I can confidently say that both of those are wrong.
Earlier today, I got hit by a car. No, that's not accurate- I got run over. Damn near flattened, even. The shock of the initial impact was fast and overpowering, thankfully my backpack absorbed some of the blow. It still felt like a body slam from a WWE champion, don't get me wrong, but it's the only reason I didn't die then and there, according to the doctor.
Maybe it was divine intervention? Divine Comedy, maybe. Cruel is all I think it was.
Anyway, back to the car. The beat up Honda Hatchback, to be specific. After I got knocked down, I struggled for a moment. I tried to thrash out of the way, but I was already well underneath the vehicle by the time I was able to react. The front bumper made contact with the back of my skull, slamming my head onto the pavement and breaking my nose. Simultaneously, the front-left wheel crushed my left arm, shattering my ulna and radius and plenty of other hand bones I don't care to list out again. The rear-left wheel was just beginning to crush my matching left foot in an act of apparent horizontal symmetry when the driver must have realized his mistake (or noticed something that the car was getting stuck on.. or had a pang of guilt) before he turned the car off and exited to find me underneath. I was already unconscious due to shock, but I can fill in the rest based on assumptions and things I've been told over and over again while resting.
Ambulance called, thrown onto a stretcher and ushered to the hospital. Unceremoniously tucked into a sick bed, plastered in casts, hooked up to an IV and left to rest while a steady stream of morphine ran through me like waves crashing on some far off beach. The coziest part of the journey, in all honesty.
Until the snag.
Some freak accident straight out of final destination, I swear to god. The doctor walks back over, checking on my vitals as he has done a million times today, but this time he trips. Some cable, wire, or tube is loose and so he comes crashing onto my bed, flattening me once more. The pain returns with a stinging wind up as the morphine drip runs dry, cords disconnected and ripped from the slots in my arms. The pain relief isn't the only thing cut off- the blood coursing through the tubes is also out, now gushing out and splattering onto the floor. Also splattering is the Doctor- Doctor Richards-'s coffee cup, scalding hot and coating my chest as I lay pretty much immobile, bound by casts and supports. Between the burns and the impact and the shock of the sudden removal, I'm pretty much sent back to square one where I was a few hours ago. Oxygen is staggered at this point, my heart practically working at half speed- and so even with the clinician's desperate attempts to reattach the drips and clean up his mess, I'm fading out. Stars encircle me as the pain starts to dull into a warm fuzzy feeling far away, everything getting further and further from my view..
And suddenly, I'm back at the real square one. The earliest memory I can recall, my older brother's fifth birthday party. I was two then, sitting in a high chair being fed some yogurt bite snacks as adults conversed around me and cooed at my development.
The memories came back slowly, but surely. The early years were spotty, flashes of places and people I only half remember intercut with long, winding periods of darkness and scattered noise, but once I was viewing memories from about 5 onwards there weren't any significant gaps.
As my life plays out, I am still helpless. I cannot move or act, I have no agency in these scenes- I still faintly feel the tingling burn of coffee on my chest and the numb plaster restricting my arms and legs from even adjusting my position. I can only sit and watch the years pass by, painstakingly slowly. I rewatch everything, even getting lost in the moment at times- my first friendship developing, my first kiss, my first breakup. Moving out for the first time feels as fresh as it ever was as I watch myself set down the last box in my empty apartment bedroom over a decade ago.
Thirty-four years sequentially and continuously playing out without the ability to pause.
I don't even recognize this morning as it starts to play out. My final morning. I watch myself shower, get dressed, eat a pathetic last meal of a protein bar and glass of 2% milk, then pack my backpack with my laptop, books, and jacket. It's only when I start walking across the fateful side street, the street with the stolen stop sign, the street with the hatchback- that panic starts to set in. Desperation. But as I am still powerless to stop it, powerless to do anything but watch, I watch. I feel myself get hit again- body slam, thrown to the ground, broken nose, crushed arm, flattened foot- then a fade to black as I lose consciousness. Though I don't have memory of being unconscious, the time still passes more or less like normal- not that I have any way to tell. I regain consciousness in the hospital, listen to the doctor rambling about the crash, listing out every broken bone I have, rattling off details about insurance claims and medical bills, then fade back into sleep before being jerked awake by the ripping out of cables and freshening up of my coffee burn. Though I'm fearful of what lies beyond, I'm almost giddy at this moment- I can finally end this slideshow, I can finally move on.
Except I don't. As I lay there, stars encircling me, everything getting further away and fading again as it did seemingly 34 years ago, it happens again. I'm back at the birthday party.
I remember panic setting in during the first few years on this second loop.
By the time I reached my tenth birthday, though? I pretty much resigned myself to my fate.
When I got hit by the car for the third time today, I didn't even blink.
And when the loop started up again and I started watching my life for a fourth time, I could only imagine myself sighing.
At this point, I've lost track of how many times I've been through this. How many times I've taken the SATs, how many times i've fallen out of a tree in middle school and broken my knee, how many times i've watched my last conversation with my parents, how many times i've been to my grandfather's funeral.
I must have been through every stage of grief a thousand times over by now, not just to the people i've lost, but to myself. I've reached acceptance, but whoever's pulling the strings just won't let me move on.
How many times I've laid awake at night, unable to fall asleep but yearning so hard to finally rest. How many times I've taken the same exact route to work, walking on a predetermined path to the same doldrums day in and day out. How many times I've sat waiting in empty rooms unable to do anything that I haven't already done.
I only wonder if there was supposed to be something waiting for me at the end of the line, if this is just some kind of fatal fluke.. Or if this is just what awaits everyone once they're ready to pass.