Prompt had something to do with science enabling someone to have a conversation with themselves
Kevin Believes He Has Dèjá Vu.
Kevin believes he has dèjá vu.
Two days ago Kevin was on his jog, running laps around the park near his house. Kevin did thirty laps every morning.
Thirty laps, thirty passes of the same park bench, each time the same strange man sitting there, completely alone, and talking to no one.
Lap one, there he is, talking calmly. Lap ten, he’s gesticulating, irritable, his voice raises and Kevin hears some odd words – words like “Temporality Complex” and “Quantum Paradox”. Kevin is a high school drop out and auto mechanic and these things mean very little to him. Lap nineteen, the man is really yelling now. Lap twenty five, he’s calmed down, but still talking, he looks angry.
On lap thirty, the man does the strangest thing. Kevin watches as he leans in to the empty space to his left and jabs at it. Then, sitting there, completely alone, he stares into empty air with this look of horror and Kevin sees the silvery blade of a knife in his hand.
The knife, of course, makes Kevin nervous. The whole situation is quite sad, mental illness not being something Kevin makes light of, having a schizophrenic brother who struggled with his own delusions.
But as Kevin ran back to his apartment, he couldn’t help but shake his head disbelievingly at the extent of the man’s madness, not only to have an auditory and visual hallucination, but hallucinate stabbing it.
Six months passes, fall comes. Kevin goes running as he does every morning, doing his thirty laps. On lap one, he passes the same bench and, would you believe it, the same man is sitting there, now bundled up a little in a fall jacket and, of course, having another conversation with nobody.
Only, when Kevin thought back to the first time he’s seen the man he remembered he was sitting on the other end of the bench.
Lap five, the man is speaking in hushed tones, hiding his face behind his hand, legs crossed. Something seems to be perturbing him.
Lap ten the man is silent, his body scrunched tightly in the corner of the bench, as if he is being excoriated by invisible forces. Kevin feels for the poor man.
Lap fifteen, the man is talking, fairly loudly, even-tempered and Kevin overhears some words he does not fully understand. “Exotic Paradox” and “Quantum Inevitability.” The man’s face is contorted, it seems to Kevin, with anger, yes, but mostly sadness.
Lap nineteen, the man is silent again, and crying. He looks like he wants to leave, he even makes eye contact with Kevin for a moment and it seems his eyes are pleading, though for what Kevin couldn’t know.
By lap twenty five Kevin has increased the volume of his music. He tries not to look at the man on the bench, but he can’t help it and he sees the man is literally pleading with nobody, the palms of his hands together in front of him, tears streaming down his face. Kevin decides to keep running just to make sure the man didn’t hurt himself and then call 911 before heading home.
Kevin cuts lap thirty short and watches the man from a distance, calling 911 on the phone.
As the phone rings Kevin watches. The man sits in silence, his face forlorn and pale. He doesn’t speak anymore, just cries and shakes his head left and right. He looks to Kevin like a man condemned.
Apropos of nothing the man lurches over and grabs at his stomach with a loud yell. Kevin looks closely and sees the man pull his hands away from his abdomen and stare at them in horror. Inexplicably, they are covered in steaming blood.
Instinct brings Kevin over to the man at a sprint just as he begins to pass out. The operator answers the call just as Kevin arrives beside the bench and Kevin tells her their has been a stabbing.
As he waits for the police to arrive Kevin looks at the place on the bench where the man had been addressing empty air. It seems to Kevin he can see a haze there, ephemeral but present. Nervously, he reaches out with his left hand to touch the spot, but there is nothing.
If You Enjoyed This Story – Or Any Of The Hundreds Of Other Legends From The Multiverse – And Want To Give A Dollar To The Madman Behind The Curtain Who Writes Them All:
Subscribe to the RSS feed or leave a comment anywhere on the r/LFTM subreddit with “!subscribeme” or “subscribeme!”, and you’ll receive a notification whenever a new story or continuation is posted.
READ MORE FLASH FICTION
| ACTION | APOCALYPTIC | DARK | ESTABLISHED UNIVERSE | FANTASY |
| FUNNY MAYBE | HORROR | MISC | WTF IS THIS? | SAD |
| SCIENCE FICTION | SCIENCE FANTASY | TWIST ENDING | RANDOM |
READ LONGER STORIES
| THE DEMON’S CANTOS | INCIDENTAL SUPERHERO |
| BENEATH | THE HUMANITY SAGA |
| THE TRAVELER | I, LYCANTHROPE |