I was five coffees down and still shattered as I sat in the diner past midnight off Route
The waitress did her best to keep my cup filled.
If she knew I wasn't going to tip, I don't think she'd have been so attentive.
I finished my pastrami on rye and waited patiently for my ice cream; it was my little treat to
myself for being on the home stretch.
My hands shook from the caffeine, but my head still hung heavy with the fog of impending
sleep.
I needed to stay awake for two more hours, that's all I needed.
Then I'd be home, in my own bed.
The diner was modestly full for that time of night.
The low murmurs of conversation did nothing to cover the sound of the bell as it rang
signaling another patron.
I barely noticed the man in the black hoodie glide past and sit in the booth opposite.
His jiggling leg caught my attention.
"Psst," he whispered to me over the walkway.
On edge I returned a scowl, "what?"
"Want to know something interesting?" he said in a Russian accent.
I immediately thought he was going to try and sell me drugs.
"Stop bothering me," I said, returning my gaze to the screen on my phone.
He ignored me and leaned over anyway.
"The waitress is going to drop that coffeepot in ten seconds."
I peered up to see her pouring the coffee into another customer's cup.
I wouldn't have said it was curiosity, more like when someone says don't think of a
pink elephant, you kind of have to.
Still, I found myself counting down in my head.
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…
Nothing.
I turned to face the man, finding it hard to suppress my shit eating grin.
Then I heard the smash.
My smile fell.
"Don't beat yourself up, very few people actually know how long a second really is."
Intrigued, I got up and shuffled to the seat opposite him.
"What the hell was that?"
I asked.
"Just a lucky guess."
Bullshit.
"So what else are you going to do?
Levitate?
Chop someone in half?"
"I want to play a game with you," he said.
I wondered what a man like him was doing in a place like this, in the middle of no-where.
Without thinking, I searched around, trying to find a hidden camera, expecting to find
myself on YouTube in the morning.
"Brian," he continued, "that is your name, right?"
It was, but everyone called me, Sonny, long story.
I nodded.
"In a couple of minutes, a woman in a red dress will run into the diner screaming.
We will hear the distress, everyone will look around and she will burst through those doors."
He grabbed my hand.
"Are you listening to me?" he said in an almost panicked tone, his Russian accent
now authoritarian and unnerving.
"Yes, yes," I said.
"She is going to say there is a dead body in the parking lot.
And you know what Brian?
They are going to think it was you."
"Why?"
He held a finger up, signaling for silence.
"Three seconds and the phone is going to ring."
We sat in silence for those three seconds.
The pregnant pause that held in the air made the atmosphere grow thick.
"Can you get that?"
I heard the waitress say, "I'm still cleaning up this mess."
My eyes widened.
The man opposite me smiled.
"What is Déjà vu?" he asked.
"It's when you feel that you know that something was going to happen and then it
happens."
"Exactly."
"Hang on a minute, are you saying you had Déjà vu when the waitress dropped the coffeepot?"
"Yeah."
"But déjà vu is a feeling you get after it's happened, not before."
"The human brain is incredible.
It is constantly calculating what is going to happen in the future, and sometimes your
brain works out something incredibly unlikely, you are unaware of it until it happens.
I've learnt how to harness that."
"Bullshit," I said, almost spraying the man in spit.
I turned as I heard a commotion from outside.
He leaned forward, "we have less than a minute for you to make your decision."
My heart began to race in my chest.
The fog of tiredness had now been replaced by panic, all my concentration was now focused
on this stranger in front of me.
"Brian, you ran someone over in the car park."
I tried to recall, but all I could remember was coasting in off the highway and into the
parking lot.
I had the music up so loud and was so tired it was possible.
"He was a homeless man.
He tried to flag you down, but you didn't see.
You just ran straight over him and parked up.
There's CCTV here.
You'll go to prison."
"Why are you telling me all this?"
I asked, my leg now jiggled.
The man's was still.
There was a large crash as the front door to the diner swung open.
The bell rang out loud, as if it were as panicked as I was.
A woman stood there.
Her red dress barely covered her knees.
It was just like the man said.
"There's someone in the parking lot, I think they're dead!" she screamed, her
voice shill, cracking on the odd syllable, "somebody call 911."
"Brian."
I ignored the man.
I was in shock.
I watched the waitress panic, rushing over to the phone that hung on the wall.
"Brian!" the man shouted, pulling my hand towards him.
"You need to get those CCTV tapes.
It's the only way you will get out of this."
"I don't know if I can do that.
What about my truck?"
"Give me the keys.
I'll drive it up to the next rest stop.
When the dust settles, you meet me there."
I saw blue lights in the distance.
I had no idea if they were on the way here, but I couldn't take the risk.
I pulled the keys out of my pocket and gripped them hard.
"I'll distract the staff, it'll give you time to get into the back office and take
the tape, make sure you put another tape back in.
When you do, leave out the back door, take that tape and throw it into the bushes.
I'll come and collect it later."
"Why are you helping me?"
I asked.
"Déjà vu," he said, "you are going to help me not very long from now.
I need to make sure that happens."
I gave him the keys.
He got up and calmly walked over to the waitress, who was nervously swaying from side to side.
The man, I assumed was the manager, talked to her.
The man in the black hoodie, walked past and struck up a conversation.
The employees turned their backs to allow me to make my move.
I'd never done so much stolen a pen, never mind obstruct justice.
But I knew what I needed to do.
It was easy to enter the office.
There was a small table, with a laptop, and a monitor hung from the ceiling in the far
corner.
On it displayed four different security cameras.
There was no VCR to be seen.
I followed the cable into a metal cabinet.
I opened it up.
A few LED lights flashed.
There was no tape recorder.
Who knew where this sent its feed.
It could have gone straight to the cloud for all I knew.
I needed to destroy it, just in case.
I looked around the room for something I could use.
"What the hell are you doing in here?"
I heard from behind me.
"I uhhhh," I said, "I was looking for a weapon, just in case whoever did that was
still here."
"Get out," he said, pushing me back into the diner.
I saw blue lights rotate and shine on the diner's walls.
I was screwed.
I sat back down at my booth and contemplated what would happen.
I'd run someone over.
I was too tired to drive.
Once they knew that, they'd know why I was in the back office.
Huh, is this what the guy meant by Déjà vu?
If it was, it was a little late for me.
When I saw the cop enter, the bell barely rung.
It was as if I had tunnel vision.
The walls were closing in.
I was going to spend a long time in prison.
In that moment, I was okay with that.
Déjà vu?If it was, at least it was helping me cope.
The woman in red was nowhere to be seen.
I guess she was outside with the police, telling them how she found the body.
The hoodie man I was speaking to was gone.
At least he got away.
I knew where to tell the company the truck was.
I really hoped he wouldn't get in trouble for taking it away from the crime scene.
He did everything to help me, and he was a complete stranger.
How did he not see that coming.
The police radio crackled into action.
I didn't take in the garbled sounds as my mind tried to come to terms with what I was
to tell my wife.
Oh Jesus, my wife, I never even thought of her.
My heart sunk.
"Copy that," the cop said, and left the diner.
I waited for thirty minutes for the cop to return.
He never did.
"More coffee?" the waitress said, "it's on the house, you know, for all the unpleasantness
we just went through."
She filled my coffee cup.
"What do you mean?"
I asked in a daze.
She put her hands on her hip, and in a delicate southern accent said,
"False alarm.
Seems that dead body was just a homeless guy dead drunk."
"I don't understand."
"The cops took him away."
"I thought he was dead."
"So did that poor lady.
She looked more relieved than any of us.
A nice man offered her a lift in his big truck."
The pennies fell into place, slowly but surely.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Sure, hon."
"Why did you drop your coffeepot?"
"I didn't," she said, leaning over to whisper, "the man that was sitting there
hit it out of my hand.
But I can't blame them.
They wouldn't tip me if I did."
The seat was empty.
I should have seen it coming.
He stole my truck.
"Miss?"
I asked.
"Yes."
I counted out the money I owed for my meal.
"Can you call me a cab?"
I left the diner to wait.
I thought about it a moment and returned to leave a tip.
She wouldn't have expected that.
"Thank you," she said, "I forgot your ice cream."
"Don't worry about that."
"No, I insist," she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
A couple of minutes later she returned.
"Here you go."
The bowl was full of vanilla ice cream covered in raspberry syrup.
I dug in.
"Take your time, sweetie.
Just heard on the radio there's a pileup on the freeway.
A semi-truck broke through the central reservation and burst into flames.
It'll be a while before that's cleared.
Can I refill your coffee?"
"Please."
I smiled.
The diner was now full again.
Sounds coming from everywhere..
A man in the black hoodie glide past and sit in the booth opposite.
His jiggling leg caught my attention.
"Psst," he whispered to me.
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