I was five coffees down and still shattered as I sat in the diner past midnight off Route 1. 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 back into the diner.

I saw blue lights rotate and shine on the diner’s walls. I was fucked.

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. I phoned my wife to tell her I’d be late. I dialed my manager. He was pissed, asking why I was phoning so late.

“You’ll not believe what’s just happened,” I said.

I explained that my truck had been stolen.

He paused for a moment, then asked, “have you ever had déjà vu?”

---

I was four coffees down and still shattered as I sat in the diner past midnight off Route 1. The waitress did her best to keep my cup filled. If she knew I was going to tip as much as I do, I think she’d have been more 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. Something didn’t feel right. I wasn’t sure what. It felt overly familiar, except I’ve never stopped here before.

The diner was quite full for that time of night. The low murmurs of conversation did nothing to cover the sound of the bell as it rang, another patron entering from the cold. 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 was intrigued. I didn’t know if it was his oddly 90s apparel or his eastern European inflection.

I returned my gaze to the screen on my phone, ignoring him.

He leaned over.

“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 admit, I was curious. Strangely, I believed him. I found myself counting down in my head.

5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

Then I heard the smash.

“See,” he said.

I don’t know why, but I expected him to smile. I got up and shuffled to the seat opposite him.

“Do I know you?” I asked.

“Maybe,” he replied, a look of concentration or concern drew on his face.

“So what else are you going to do? Chop someone in half? Levitate?”

He was about to talk when I interrupted him.

“You want to play a game with me,” I said.

My own words caught me off guard. I wondered what a man like him was doing in a place like this, in the middle of no-where. I searched around, looking for someone, a woman I thought it was. Why did I expect to see a woman? There were women in here, but none of them were who I had in mind.

“Brian,” he continued, “that is your name, right?”

“Sonny,” I replied, “Everyone calls me Sonny. Only my parents call me Brian.”

“In a couple of minutes…” he started.

“A woman in a red dress will run into the diner screaming.”

He grabbed my hand.

“Oh my God,” he said in an almost panicked tone, his Russian accent now authoritarian and unnerving.

“She is going to say there is a dead body in the parking lot,” I continued, perplexed.

He held a finger up, signaling for silence.

“Three seconds and the phone is going to ring,” I said.

The look of concentration turned to elation.

We sat in silence for those three seconds. The pregnant pause that held in the air made the atmosphere weigh heavy.

“Can you get that?” I heard the waitress say, “I’m still cleaning up this mess.”

My eyes widened.

The man opposite me clapped his hands once, before checking around the diner, scolding himself.

“You know what Déjà vu is, right?” 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, is that what’s going on now?”

“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, “you know what’s about to happen don’t you.”

I nodded and felt my truck keys in my pocket. 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.

“Has this happened before?”

“Has, hasn’t, going to, not going to. It’s up to you Sonny, it’s imperative you follow the visions as closely as possible. If you don’t, we will drift too far off course and this whole thing will be in vain. The woman, she saw someone who appears dead in the car park. You need to believe you did it.”

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’s 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 need to believe 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 I 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.”

“Sonny.”

I ignored the man. I was in shock. I watched the waitress panic, rushing over to the phone that hung on the wall.

“Sonny!” the man shouted, pulling my hand towards him.

“You need to go in the back office and pretend you are looking for those CCTV tapes. Trust me.”

“I don’t know if I can do that. What about my truck?”

“Give me the keys. I’ll drive it 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 pretend to look for the tape.”

I had a vision of monitors, a laptop but no VCR.

“They don’t have tapes here. It’s all on the cloud. How in the hell do I know that?” I said.

“Déjà vu,” he replied, “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 as stolen a pen, never mind mess with the fabric of time. I stood for a long while. It was as if I was grounded to the spot. The air grew thick, a shimmer like heat haze gradually appeared. The outlines of the people in the diner grew blurry, it was as if they split into multiple different versions of themselves. What was I seeing? The Russian glared back at me, at the same time, he turned and walked further away. There were two of him. It was as if I was seeing different possible timelines, as crazy as that sounds. 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. As expected, 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. I knew the door was going to open, so I waited and braced to be shouted at.

“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. What the fuck was going on?

I sat back down at my booth and contemplated. Did I actually run someone over? Had that Russian guy tricked me? I was too tired to drive. Once they knew that, they’d know why I was in the back office. Was this really Déjà vu? If it was, I had no idea what I’d gotten myself into.

Something clicked, it felt like an electrical buzz down my spine. A police officer was going to walk through the front door.

Moments later, when the cop entered, the bell barely rung. It was as if I had tunnel vision. The walls were closing in. Everything was so clear to me then. I knew the woman in red was gone. I knew the Russian was gone. I presumed he had my truck… My truck…

My muscles spasmed in unison, it’s how I’d imagine being abducted by aliens. I felt the heat, my skin being scorched by a raging fire. I was on my side. The cars on the other side of the freeway slowed to a halt. I tried to scream, but the sounds were lost within the music that played too loud. I breathed heavily as the vision faded, the hot flames replaced by the modest warmth of the diner. What did I just experience? Sweat poured off me. The ghost of the odor of burning plastic hung in the air.
“Are you okay, sir?” the cop asked me with concern.

Before I could answer, the police radio crackled into action. I didn’t take in the garbled sounds as my mind tried to come to terms with what happened only moments before.

“Copy that,” the cop said, and left the diner.

I knew I needed to wait, it felt right. I scanned the room looking for that shimmer to reappear, to tell me if I was drifting off the correct path. It did not.

“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.

“Thank you,” I said in a daze.

She put her hands on her hip, and in a delicate southern accent said, “Looks like that was a false alarm. Seems that dead body was just a homeless guy dead drunk.

“The cops took him away,” she continued, “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. Was it a set up after all?

“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. But what about the visions? How did he do that? Hypnosis?

“Miss?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I counted out the money I owed for my meal and a large tip.

“Can you call me a cab, the name’s Sonny?”

“Sure. Why thank you,” she said, eyeing the fifteen dollars I had left her, “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?”

A vision of me lying on my side burning to death flashed before my eyes, but this time with no heat, and no smell.

I took my time with the ice cream. I knew I’d be waiting a while. Twenty-three minutes in fact.
“Your cab’s here,” the waitress said. I saw the lights of the car that idled outside.

“April Drive?” he said, as I jumped into the back seat.

“Actually, no,” I thought about it, “do you know the rest stop on Route 1?”

“Which direction?”

“If we were headed to April Drive.”

“Sir, the express way is closed in that direction. Major pile up. I think there may have been some casualties from what I’ve heard over the radio.”

“Shit,” I exclaimed.

“Although, I do know a service route that could take us up there, you’d need to walk a while.”

“Could you do that?”

“Sure.”

I sat in silence as we drove out of the diner and under the freeway. The plumes of smoke and the flickering of the inferno could be seen from miles around. I wondered if this was pointless. That Russian guy surely perished.

The road twisted and turned. Trees loomed down oppressively in the dark. I waited for another vision, another bolt of electricity to run down my spine, but nothing happened. I had no clue about what the future now held. The driver put on his high beams.

“You see that fence over there?” he pointed through the gloom.

“Yeah.”

“Hop that, and it will only be a few hundred yards.”

“How do you know about this place?” I asked.

“I’ve dropped off many a sex worker here.”

“Really?”

“Yup, they pay well too.”

I wondered if that was hint. I took it as such and when I left, gave him an extra ten dollars. It cleared me out.

“Pfft. Guess you don’t get paid as well as them. You want me to wait?”

“No,” I said, not thinking what I’d do if the Russian wasn’t there.

“See you around, Brian.”

Wait a minute…

Before I could ask, he had already closed the window, his taillights disappearing around the corner.

I vaulted the fence. The wood rotten and sodden from the rain earlier in the day. Mulch squelched under my feet as I jogged to the flood lit building in front of me. I panted when I stopped. My haggard breath turning to vapor in the cool night air.

The parking lot was quite busy. The semi-truck spaces were almost full. I assumed they’d heard about the crash on their CB’s and decided to pull off and wait here, instead of in traffic. The freeway was jammed. Cars and vans sat bumper to bumper, their headlights illuminating the vehicles in front, like little dioramas of stick figures, all looking straight ahead patiently for the car beyond to move.

Five minutes of waiting in the cold made me angry. A light shower ran through my thin coat, chilling me to the bone. Another five minutes and I felt embarrassed and stupid. I had no money. I had my phone, but who could I get out here to pick me up. I was about to phone and wake my wife when I saw two people walk along the slip road that led to the rest stop. One of them waved. I turned around, looking for who they were waving at. It was me. Cautiously, I waved back. They broke into a jog.

The floodlights illuminated them. Two people. One man, one woman. The man wearing a black hoodie, now soaked through. A woman, her red dress barely covered her knees.

“I knew you’d make it,” the man said, his Russian accent thick and full of excitement, “this is Natasha.”

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, her American accent now gone and similar to man’s.

“I’m Chekhov, sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier. I see a lot of potentials.”

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded.

“You have the gift,” he said, holding his arms outstretched.

“Had, you mean. I know Jack shit about what’s coming next.”

“That’s fine. It’s your first time, actually second, but we’ll come to that later. We need your help.”

“Why me?”

“Do you really need to ask this?”

“Isn’t there anyone else who can help you?”

“Yes, there is. Thirty before tonight, you make it thirty-one.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Something big is going to happen. The far-seers have told us. We need more of you. We need to prevent what’s coming.”

“What?”

“You won’t believe me if I told you. Can I get you a coffee? I’ll tell you a little about what we’re doing. You’ll want to be a part of it, I’ve seen it.”

He grinned.

“Come on,” he gestured to the small café that sat proud from the main toilet block.

I was tired, but I was also very curious.

“Sure,” I said, yawning.

“Haven’t you forgotten to do something?” the Russian asked, “Your wife?”

“Shit, Sarah.”

I phoned her to tell her I’d be late. I dialled my manager. He was pissed, asking why I was phoning so late.

“You’ll not believe what’s just happened,” I said.

I explained that my truck had been stolen.

He paused for a moment, then asked, “have you ever had déjà vu?”