I walked slowly towards the bus stop. It was my usual bus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, the days I stayed back longer; and I had a few more minutes to spare. There were a few other passengers around when I reached my usual spot at the stop. I glanced around to see if there were any familiar faces. I had seen a couple of them before. In a few minutes, there was a loud grating noise and everyone by the road could see how quickly a man fell out of his screeching motorbike.
I was petrified. Everything seemed to have frozen. After what seemed like a few minutes, I could see a couple of people going towards the fallen man. I remember flinching involuntarily, when I saw that the man had no helmet.
Later, I was upset that I had frozen, that I had done nothing to help out and that I had hurried to get on my bus as more people gathered around the accident site. The screeching of the bike rang in my ears and I realized that it would continue for sometime.
The day went on without anything else coming up out of the blue. During the course of the day, I found myself hoping and praying that the man received immediate medical help and that he would recover soon. Even when I laid down to sleep, it took some time to push back the thoughts of the accident and the thoughts on what I could have done to help. The top one being not to have frozen. I was in school and phones weren’t allowed so I had no phone on me. Was there anything I could have done…
I spent more time at school. When there was nothing more to do, I left for my bus. I noticed that there were few people at the stop today. Surprisingly, they were the same people as yesterday.
Wait! Today isn’t Thursday, why am I at the stop during this time! Did I lose track of time? No, it feels too much like yesterday. My mind raced past the things I had done at school, in the reverse order and I realized that it was in fact Thursday today. How! Was it a dream? But the accident was too real! If I had somehow dreamt the whole thing, it would mean that the bike was going to skid any moment now!
And my train of thought was broken at the loud grating noise. I couldn’t believe it! The same incidents started unfolding in front of my eyes. And this time I was in an even greater shock; I couldn’t move at all. I didn’t even know how I managed to climb the bus. I suddenly noticed that one thing was different from my dream – the rider had his helmet on. I was relieved about this, but the thoughts of dreaming about the future clouded my mind and I started feeling uneasy.
I tried keeping any thoughts of the premonition-dreaming away from my mind for the rest of the day. But the moment I got ready for bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about what my dreams, or rather, nightmares, would show me tonight. I tried keeping myself awake as long as I could. I was sure that I could do it. And when this certainty started to weaken, I hoped that even if I did fall asleep, I would be too tired to dream or remember any dreams when I woke up.
Next day when I woke up, I wondered why I felt tired. But when I realized that I had no recollection of any dreams, I didn’t feel tired anymore. I went about with my morning chores, again hoping that the man was recovering well and glanced at the newspaper. I wonder if anyone had ever been shocked seeing the date in the newspaper before. It was the fateful Thursday again!
To be continued… – Déjà vu- Part 2
