Harris Burdick

I drifted to sleep softly, slowing down my breathing rate to the bare minimum.  Feeling my chest rise and fall as my eyes close, showing me only the darkness of the night.  The loneliness of the empty black surroundings mocked me as I lie still, my thoughts all jumbled up from the exhaustion.  The events of the day were forgotten. It’s all up to my dreams, my involuntary brain activity. 

                “Wake up honey, it’s time for breakfast,” I heard from outside my bedroom door.  I lifted my eyelids unwillingly.  This strange sense of De Ja Vu hit me. Then I realize what it was. I turn my head like an owl and glanced at my room.  There they were, the High School Musical posters in the exact same spots I had them when I was 10.  Even the one in the far corner of my room that was ripped in half by my little brother that I had basically performed surgery on it to make sure Troy’s eyeballs were evenly placed in the exact right place. 

                “What is happening” I thought as I looked at my tiny 4^th grade hands. “I’m 16 years old, why am I a little kid again?” I begin to panic.  I attempt to dig through every drawer, closet space, and cabinet searching for any signs of my teenage years.  I found nothing. No pictures of my best friends and I, no cell phone with all our conversations, no clothing or driver’s license were anywhere to be found. Am I supposed to relive the past 6 years of my life?

                I walk out of my room. Wait a second, this isn’t my house. I see the hallway my room was located in lead in the opposite direction with the restroom on the other side.  There is carpet where beautiful oak stained hardwood floors used to be. Then I remembered, I didn’t move into that house until I was 11.  This was the house where I spent my childhood in, or should I say am spending my childhood.  I think to myself, maybe this won’t be such an awful thing.  I get to start over, erase all the mistakes I’ve made and the words I’ve said.  I’ll have a heads up on what is going to happen to me that day because I have already lived through it once before.

                I see my mother in the kitchen fixing my favorite breakfast when I was a kid, French toast.

“Good morning Kala” she said to me. My mother’s hair is different than I remember.  The color is a deep brunette cut to frame her ovular face.  Her makeup is applied, with the mascara perfectly defining her soft brown eyes.  She is wearing her favorite red fleece sweatshirt and a pair of jeans.  I glance at her wedding ring. The shimmer of the perfectly cut diamond in a gold setting caught my eye. I couldn’t believe it! She found her old ring that mysteriously went missing when I was in middle school. Then it hit me, I’ve never been in middle school.

I eat my French toast in silence, having the strange urge to get up and find my phone to check twitter. Wait, what phone? What twitter account? I don’t have one.

“Where are Charlie and Cocoa?” I ask my mother.

“Who?” She replied.

“Our dogs, where are they?” and then once again reality set in, we haven’t adopted my dogs yet.

“Kala-bayla you must have had a crazy dream last night. We’ve never owned any dogs.”

I feel like I’m going to be sick.  I excuse myself from the table and tell myself I’m going for a walk outside.

“You can’t go by yourself Mikala.  Wait until I’m finished cleaning up and I will come with you.”

“Mom I’m old enough to walk outside by myself.” I snapped. With that, I was gone.  I ran out the back door and sprinted out to the back retention ditch and snuck through the barbed-wire fence. I walked barefoot through the dew covered grass, feeling some blades stick to my skin.  In the distance I hear my mother calling my name. I know she must be worried but I don’t really care.  I make my way to the field behind my Old Catholic school.  It is so weird being back here as a kid. I remember all the memories that felt like years ago, but really only happened days or weeks before this. 

I plop down on the softball diamond at the school where I practiced for my softball team.  I could not believe what was happening to me. Living the next 6 years in the life of de ja vu is not what I was wanting to do.  I don’t want to make friends with the people who already were my friends just the day before.  I don’t want to have to retake that physics final my freshman year or go through losing my grandmother for the second time.  I can’t live with knowing exactly when and where everything is going to happen and what the people in my life are going to do to me. I know I said this wouldn’t be so bad, because I get a second chance but then I realized something. I don’t want a second chance. I want to keep moving forward with my life, but now I can’t do that. 

I remove myself from my thoughts and look at the ground next to me.  I see two little caterpillars playing together near my feet.  I pick them up and hold them in my 10 year old hands. These caterpillars are my friends, I thought to myself.  I decided to name them Oscar and Alphosne. I sat there for at least an hour just talking to my new friends about how messed up everything is.  Then in the distance, I spot my mother crying out my name in a desperate worried tone. 

I knew it was time to send them back.  The caterpillars softly wiggles in her hand, spelling out “goodbye.” Goodbye to life as she knew it.

Suddenly, I opened my eyes.  I heard country music playing from my alarm clock.  I look around, and it’s my room! My light green walls are there, my pictures of all my friends are plastered in every inch of them. My phone vibrates, my group chat between me and my two best friends has been going on. I can’t help but smile.  It was all a dream.