Revision. (The Re-Up)

Prologue + Chapter One: i

A feeling of having already experienced the present situation. That is the definition of the phrase, "deja vu." But that does not account for the revisiting of situations, of getting forcefully absorbed into your own past. No, that phrase is more medically inclined, and sometimes associated with the clinically insane; but if you had to relive the worst parts of your life over and over and over again, would you not lose control of your mind? Veterans get the most pleasant experience with it, or even victims of car crashes. By no means am I saying that they have it easy, but they have societal pressure lifted off of them a little more than someone who simply has an obscure trauma contained in their head because of the normalized stigma. The phrase that I refer to now is PTSD, which is caused by a plethora of things that usually coincide with the experiences of the average life. So most people who suffer from the mental disorder, whether they realize it or not, are seen as wackos or nut-jobs. I am not writing this to spread awareness, nor pity for myself, just an account of a wild story that is part of my life...

Chapter One:

i

An inescapable feeling that causes memories to ruminate, playing over and over again. For me, it happens often. The simplest things can trigger that sensation; a sound, a smell, a name, a touch. Sometimes it could even be all four; maybe more as well, I just may not have noticed. Well, it is those things that can come together to make someone relieve the best day of their life, or force them into the mental torture of reliving a disastrous event, such as the loss of a loved one.

That feeling of bringing forth the past happens to me all the time, but most memorably, it happened a few weeks prior to me writing this. I sat in my favorite coffee shop, reading up on some rubbish paper forgotten at my usual table. It spewed exaggerated news in my face of a journalist obstructing justice and being taken into custody. It said this in a more elaborate way, but I cannot seem to remember the exact wording. What I do remember however, is the black, bold printed font that gave me the information. I mumbled something inarticulate to myself, like a grunt, but that is all I can recall before I fell into the state of remembering.

The thick aroma of black coffee drifted its way into my nose, and the beeping and honking of heavily congested traffic blared outside the coffee shop's window. Then I heard a name being called: "Erna!" I am sure a coincidence played a hand in the occurrence, as it always is with someone having the name of a lost loved one, but be that as it may, it still dragged me down into an unforgettable trance.

The brown and gray walls of the coffee shop started to fade from my mind's eye, and the customers all blended and blurred together, transforming into tall ancient trees that surrounded my Grandmother's driveway when I was a child, the same trees that stand still; but more familiar.

"I'm not ready for the time to end!" I recalled crying out, hoping some higher power would hear my pleading and rewind the clock. I remembered Erna, my sister, and chasing after her to try and make up for the ten foot gap between us. She ran away from me, sending a smile full of endearment and welcoming embrace; a radiating layer of happiness surrounded her.

"There will always be tomorrow!" She shouted in reflection back at me.

"But there will never be another today!"

"That's right," she said, I'm sure already having her next words loaded in the chamber; "so we'll have to make tomorrow even better than today!"

And I hoped it would be. I hoped that tomorrow would be as good as that day had been, if not better, just like Erna had said.

But tomorrow was not better. Tomorrow felt as if it never came, because in reality, it never did, at least not in my mind. I was stuck, asphyxiated on that day, the today that became the worst I ever had.

Erna's smile, the last thing I saw of her. The last thing I saw before that idiotic, fucking blind truck driver sped around the distant corner where Bryn street connected with Sutan street (where my Grandmother lives). I can still remember the distinctive high pitched sound his tires made as they squealed, trying to regain traction on the road. I can still remember Erna's smile before the truck driver lost control of his vehicle. That was the last thing I saw of her ever...her smile.

Or was it the severing of her head? Her bright and infectious smile that made her a real life goddess, transformed her into a dreadful deceased corpse as Azrael stole her soul from her body. Was it her smile that I really saw?

The only thing I can ever seem to remember is the driver swiping her life away–her feet flying from the grassy ground–with his poor control of his vehicle. It's funny, all I can think of is Indiana Jones taking the artifact from the pressure plate as he swapped it with a bag of sand. But instead of sand, the driver swapped Erna's life with his. Shortly after he hit her, severing her head clean off of her neck, his truck made a mad dash towards one of the sturdy, steadfast trees and he flew out of the front windshield; he flattened on the tree and all of the blood from his body seemed as if it were painting a Rorschach inkblot test on the pavement.

That was God's way of saying, "I'm sorry," I guess. But all I had asked for was the day to be rewound, and apparently, that was asking too much. Now I have it constantly replaying, stuck in a loop even ten years later.

That night, at my Grandparents house still, I was being questioned by the police while my Mother came barreling through the front door, sobbing. She had been away at an appointment the entire day before she had been told the terrible news. She stumbled into the living room and nearly fell onto her knees, and all I could think of was Erna's smile. The dislocated smile that smeared across the road.

At the end of the nightmare, all I could think about was how to stop thinking.

All I could think about was how to stop thinking.

How to stop thinking.

And that night, at eleven years old, I did stop thinking. I stained my eternal springs of youth in filthy poison. I drank. My springs of youth had already been tainted with pain, what was a little drop going to do besides ease that pain and kill the thoughts?

Truthfully, all I learned that day was that dying hurts the living more than the dead.