Double Twenty

Chapter 18 - Hey Man Nice Shot (Filter)

Franz Kafka: "Everything you live is determined by what you carry within you."

Have you ever heard of Marie's Apocalypse?
IX - 11 They have as Queen the angel of the abyss; she is called in Hebrew Mariæ and in Greek Μαριάμ (meaning: Destroyer). April 6, 1997, at the Pessac Bowling Alley, according to the exegetes.

Yet, the day couldn't have started better, at least for the mind of a "pre-quinquagenarian" transferred into the body of his twenty-year-old self. Julien is still in 1997, April 6th. This is an important detail, as he started his comeback on the 5th. He is not trapped in a time loop, as he has seen in movies on Amazon Prime. That didn't stop him from waking up in a panic. What worries him most about this internal climate disruption is the sensation that the past, present, future, and fiction are blending together. Just yesterday, before returning from the beach with Marie, he thought he saw a man of Schwarzenegger's stature in a leather jacket, like in Terminator 2, giving him a friendly wave. His Cartesian mind cannot process all these temporal variables, yet he is alive, vibrant, everything he touches, everything he feels, and Marie, it's all real. Part of him still wishes to return to 2024, to his clear, easy, logical, organized daily life, but on the other hand, what an exhilaration to be twenty years old again!

He needs an anchor point. Music will fulfill this role. His CDs perfectly aligned, categorized. "S" Spin Doctors. Two Princes (2 tracks). He inserts the disc into his small stereo, and the festive rock notes of the Americans fill the room, acting as he hopes amidst the turmoil of his thoughts. Unlike his first day, he knows exactly where he is going today: morning with Marie, afternoon with the guys, and evening at the bowling alley. Julien appreciates that, in the end, order emerges from chaos.

Descending, he obviously finds his parents in the kitchen, the scent of their morning routine filling his nostrils: coffee, toasted bread. An unchanging ritual never disturbed.

Alejandro reads the newspaper, while Béatrice fusses around the coffee. The quiet strength of habit. "Did you have a good evening?" asks Béatrice with a benevolent smile. Before he can respond, Alejandro intervenes with a mocking tone: "Stop asking him questions!" "But I care! You're not going to reproach a mother for being interested in her son!" Julien smiles. "Yes, we went to the beach with Marie, it was nice." His mother smiles, "Marie is so pretty and intelligent, down-to-earth, that's important. Invite her to dinner tomorrow night, I'll make paella for her. What are you doing today?" Alejandro looks up from his newspaper, adding with a piercing, complicit look at Julien: "What he must do. He's an adult now, and I trust him." His reflection had another aim. Trust does not exclude control, especially when one suspects their own son of being a time traveler. The signs are there, but he needs concrete proof before acting. "I'm spending the morning with Marie, soccer this afternoon, and bowling tonight, it's Friday." "That's good, son. I'm proud of you." His father gets up and, without deviating from his habits, after a kiss on Béatrice's forehead, he pats Julien's shoulder and leaves for work. He deliberately forgets his lunch. An ideal pretext to return later in the morning to search Julien's room.

Marie welcomes Julien in the most charming way, her parents gone to work, they have the house to themselves. A slight shock for Julien who hasn't been there for about twenty years. He has forgotten the details of her room, as orderly as his but with a distinctly more feminine touch. And the softness of her sheets, scented with Jean-Paul Gaultier just like her. A fragrance that would always be associated with her. The beach has whetted their appetites. How good it is to have a twenty-year-old body. Thanks to his experience, everything is better, mastered, rhythmic, sensual. Marie is in seventh heaven. However, Julien still has an underlying thought, his secret is starting to weigh on him, and he wonders how to broach the subject with Marie. She, like him, is not a fan of science fiction, and knowing her strong character, she would take it as a bad joke. Another potential issue: the paella with her parents, if his mother suspects something strange, she wouldn't let it go. He decides it's absolutely not the right time to talk about time travel. They shower together, just like old times.