Double Twenty

CHAPTER 10 - It's All Coming Back to Me Now (Céline Dion)

"Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards." – Søren Kierkegaard

Like a sense of déjà vu, or rather "already lived." On this almost summer afternoon, the Beausoleil terrace is overflowing with students letting off steam before starting to revise for their exams, some moving from table to table with friends, others casting furtive glances, all under clouds of cigarette or moped smoke. Loïc dives into the crowd to join the group, while Julien, slightly behind, is first surprised by the chatter of conversations, their youthful, smiling faces, and the absence of smartphones that encourages interaction. Seeing and hearing his friends more vividly than in his memories, from JF with his Top Gun-style Ray-Ban sunglasses to Tonio doing his famous Jean-Pierre Papin impression, the bar radiates life and youth. Julien feels a pang in his heart; the place in 2024 is just a shadow of what it was in '97. Loïc shakes hands, kisses everyone, and even greets passersby, like the future town councilor he will become in 2014. Julien, much less popular, finds a free chair and watches the scene. Véronique, Paul the bar owner's wife, smiles at him. She's in her thirties, spirited, with a figure that would whet the appetite of the 2024 version of Julien.

"A Coke, please," he says, "no ice, a slice of lemon on top and the bottle next to it." The waitress, who knows everyone's habits, looks puzzled. He bites his lower lip, a bad habit he hasn't developed yet. "I saw it in a movie yesterday!" he explains. "Can you add a peach beer, please Véro, thanks!" Loïc, still standing, blows her a kiss from afar. "Who wants to play a game of Street Fighter? Stef?" Dressed like a bourgeois vacationer, the little rich kid of the group refuses. "Honestly, now that I have a PlayStation, arcade games are a lot less fun! I leave that to the amateurs, go ahead, Juju! Beat him." "It's not the right time, I feel," Tonio answers for him. "Look at him with his leg twitching by itself." He talks to him like an impatient child. "She'll arrive, my chicken, don't stress!" Just as he finishes his sentence, Laetitia, Émilie, and Marie appear as if by magic. Julien's senses had warned him of her arrival. The delicate scent of her skin precedes her confident stride, her voice as intelligent as it is melodious, her black hair with silvery blue highlights that he loved to caress. He never saw her age, preferring to preserve the memory of their love and her youth. He knows what she became, and that was enough for him in his 2024 present. But what about now? Far from all these supernatural considerations, the young girl kisses him naturally, probably as she does every day since they got together six or seven months ago. At the touch of their lips, Julien's heart tries to escape from his chest, completely frantic. Since his arrival in this new world, he has used defense mechanisms and rationalism honed by time to accept the incongruity of the situation. But this physical contact, especially with the love of his life? Julien, a big fan of roller coasters, sometimes seeks thrills at Parc Astérix, Port Aventura, Europa Park, all the Disney parks, Busch Gardens; nothing compares to this intense sensation rising from his toes to the roots of his hair. He is no longer a nearly fifty-year-old spirit. He wonders if maybe he invented his future; after all, maybe he dreamed it. Here, today, it's concrete. Except for Matthieu, and even then, he never saw him young, who can contest reality? "Hi everyone!" Laetitia and Émilie go around kissing everyone. Marie doesn't care about anyone else but him. Only Julien matters to her deep brown eyes. The man living within him, despite his denials, suddenly understands the meaning of the word existence and perhaps also that of love.

The bar's TV, tuned to M6 music videos, plays Sarah Brightman's "How Do You Remember Me?" The melody floats towards them. Julien is surprised, just long enough to ask himself, this song again? "Are you okay? I missed you since yesterday." "You too," he replies, avoiding saying "since a lifetime." Complicit smiles, a bubble of passion. They are in another dimension that doesn't need words or explanations, only the present moment matters to them. "Well, I think we're in the way! You were right, Tonio, he's not ready for a loss at Street Fighter," "It's beautiful, it feels like an episode of Dawson's Creek," says Laetitia, snapping her bi-flavored gum. "Okay, you too, when you have some hair, you'll have a girlfriend," says Stef, laughing, eyes fixed on a crimson-faced Loïc. Julien could do without all these comments, but he doesn't want to spoil the moment with an untimely remark or risk causing awkwardness. As she orders a Perrier in her authoritative voice, which he still sometimes hears today when he's alone in bed, replaying his life, he watches her every move, breathes in her scent, soaking up her presence as much as possible. The quintessence of youthful love, nostalgia, and regret. She is no different from his memory.

Marie, with her natural and discreet charm. Marie with black hair falling in soft waves around her sometimes sulky, sometimes laughing face. Marie with blazing eyes reflecting her quick intelligence and ability to observe the world with penetrating curiosity. Marie with a slender figure. Marie with a soothing presence or, on the contrary, a fiery one, which, combined with her discreet beauty, makes her unforgettable to those who meet her, especially Julien. If he were an artist, she would be his muse. She sips her drink, jokes with her friends, runs her hand through his hair, and Julien marvels. They whisper to each other, words that belong only to them, surrounded by friends, the carefree youth regained.

What was he going to do? His legs hurt; she sits next to him. "Loïc, still up for a Street Fighter?" He still wants to enjoy the friends too. He knows the end of the story; she will want to start a family, while he cherished his freedom above all. The years passed, a new millennium, the couple had said and done everything at least 1000 times. The passion is part of that past he is reliving today. He will have this memory twice. And certainly more, but first, he is curious to see if that YouTuber's video is true.

Loïc inserts a 10-franc coin; the arcade machine transforms into a pre-geek arena, sound effects amplified by two almost new speakers, six-button panel in perfect condition. Julien is in seventh heaven in front of this gaming grail. In his future, he still uses his PS5 almost daily, or the Xbox X more rarely, but he loves it, and what has become a norm is currently inconceivable in '97. No worries, he has his 20-year-old kid camouflage as an excuse. He presses two buttons simultaneously to join the game, while executing a half-circle and three times the left button. He selects Chun-Li, the fastest with her supersonic feet. Loïc always picks Guile, the American punk G.I.

"Fight!"

Julien expects a massacre; not only is he terrible at it, but he hasn't played this game specifically in at least two decades! M6, still in music mode, attacks the French part with Goldman, Obispo, Axelle Red - "Sensualité." A look at Marie, who doesn't get lost, returned with a blown kiss like Marilyn.

The cheat code works perfectly, all the more undetectable as even the developers didn't know of its existence until 2022, according to the YouTuber. The hits against the young blue-clad Japanese warrior only reduce her life bar by a small amount, no matter the combo executed by her opponent. Julien is guaranteed to win each time, just needing to land a few blows on his opponent. At worst, he wins by time out; at best, by K.O. Either way, Loïc has just spent 40 francs in the coin slot. The bad day's expression follows the initial incredulity. He resorts to changing characters, Ryu with his Hadouken, Shoryuken, without more success. Tonio gathers the group around the video game, in a nearly football-stadium atmosphere.

Everyone tells Loïc to give up, but he firmly believes in a comeback (another joy, no one used that term in '97), he slams the joystick in rage when Julien invites Marie to stand in front of him and guides her hands for a final victorious game. "I'll take anything, but not getting beaten by a girl!" "Typical reaction of a gendered cis heteronormative white male, patriarchal and misogynistic," Julien says. No one understands a word of what he just said. "What does that mean?" "It means it's really embarrassing, even a girl beats you!" He stands behind her and guides her movements. Another victory. And there it is, Julien knows he has just committed his first reality distortion, probably with new memories replacing the old ones, out of pure vanity. A breach of the rule he set for himself on his first day in the past. And what if, gradually, his future memories simply disappear? Major world upheavals, Covid, Taylor Swift. He would lose a major advantage over his peers. Julien wouldn't be able to handle it any better than a twenty-year-old. Resolutely, he must record as much key information as possible, make retrospective logs from 2024 to 1997; it would be his compass. He didn't receive a time traveler's manual, everything is empirical. For example, is Loïc, the best gamer of the group, going to suffer from these unprecedented defeats? What about God's existence in his situation? Will the Terminator come back from the future to look for or eliminate him?

Julien decides to set aside these thoughts and delegate them to Matthieu when the time comes. He's the philosopher. Paul presses the big remote to switch to FR3; it's almost news time. Besides natural disasters and ever-present topics, he learns that the year 2000 will arrive in 1,000 cycles of 24:00 from today. Fascinating. It's time to eat. A good McDonald's to celebrate his return and video game triumph? "Sorry, Loïc, I was lucky today." His friend is down, teased by the group who has been waiting for this moment for a long time. Julien hums "Les temps changent" by MC Solaar, is the song already out?