Writing for Fun
May 2020
Déjà vu - Pete Norman
pla·gia·rize|\ˈplā-jə- rīz also -jē-ə-\ plagiarized; plagiarizing transitive verb: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source intransitive verb: to commit literary theft: present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source
Of course I considered this very important word very carefully before I wrote this story but after all of that consideration I thought, ‘What the hell!’ You see, when a story is burning a hole in your head you simply have to write it down to make room in your head for the next one . . . and it fitted the brief so well . . . I do, therefore, make no apologies whatsoever.
She yawned and opened her eyes. The sunlight was streaming into her room. It seemed as if the forecast had been correct for once, it was going to be another beautiful day . . . but her intuition was screaming out that something was wrong. In her tired state it took her a few moments to work out what it was. The blackout blind was a couple of inches up from the window sill and she never, ever, left it like that. She did not think that she was OCD but her friends sometimes called her that because of her obsessional behaviour and tight control over every aspect of her life. She believed that the word ‘blackout’ meant exactly what it said on the tin but only if it was pulled completely down – which she always made a point of doing, each and every night. So the two inch gap at the bottom of the blind this morning was an aberration.
She glanced at her bedside clock, it was a little after eight thirty . . . but – and there was another aberration – the clock was about an inch further back on the bedside table than it usually sat. Her paranoia was growing; she forced herself upright and looked around her room. She was actively searching to see if there was something else out of place, something else wrong which might compound her concerns. Everything seemed to look exactly as it should . . . but then her gaze fell on the bedside chair on which her clothes were draped. Now, that was completely wrong.
Sometimes her assignments in M.I.5. required extremely early starts, so she had got into the habit of neatly stacking her clothes on the chair in the precise order and in the correct orientation in which she would put them on in the morning, an exercise which ensured that she could dress quickly and efficiently, even in complete darkness. The fact that her clothes were simply abandoned like that might point to her having had more than one glass of Chardonnay last night – and it would have had to have been considerably more than one glass. However, she had no recollection of doing that and she was not experiencing any signs of a hangover, so there had to be a more rational explanation.
A search of the rest of the flat proved inconclusive – everything was there and everything looked in its right place and exactly as it always did but if she wanted to be really pedantic she could believe that everything was just minimally skewed from her controlled normality.
She was puzzled but she could not see any way of resolving this, especially on an empty stomach, so first she showered and dressed and then poured a large bowl of cornflakes.
It was only after breakfast that she ventured out of the flat. As she opened her front door, however, the shock hit her like a house-brick.
Gone was her quiet London Mews; gone was the ivy covered wall which almost obliterated Janet’s flat opposite; gone were the centuries worn cobblestones and the Victorian pump in the far corner. Her brain was spinning; she leaned back against the door and tried to make sense of it all.
She was in a narrow passageway lined by an eclectic mixture of old cottages, each one individually and beautifully preserved and maintained; window boxes were adorned with a whole rainbow of flowers. The cottages were immaculate in every detail – not a thing was out of place. Normally this would have appealed to her obsessive nature but her brain was working in entirely the opposite direction, she could see no beauty whatsoever in the perfection, to her it looked unreal, sterile . . . sinister.
There was no one else in sight but the moment she took a few steps further a door opened and a grey haired old lady emerged from a cottage opposite with a broom in her hand. She was ninety if she was a day but the lady moved with a precision and fluidity that belied her advancing years.
The old lady smiled – a warm friendly smile – and wished her ‘a very good morning’ and ‘isn’t it so much nicer now that the sun is shining’. A perfectly normal greeting, perhaps but under the circumstances she found it deeply disturbing.
She returned the smile – which had to be dredged up from deep within her reserves of conviviality – bid her ‘a good day’ and walked off down the gently sloping path. After a few steps she turned to see that the old lady was meticulously sweeping the pathway in front of her house which, before her emergence, had not had a speck of dust anywhere – it had been clean enough to eat your food off.
Around a slight bend the path opened onto a small square with an ancient fountain bubbling in its centre. On the other side of the square an old man was polishing his already pristine windows with a large yellow duster. He smiled – a warm friendly smile – and wished her ‘a very good morning’ and ‘isn’t it so much nicer now that the sun is shining’.
She responded in like manner and quickly moved through the square to the pathway opposite, leaving the man whistling cheerfully as he carried out his completely superfluous cleaning.
She thought that if ever there was a competition for the best kept village then this one must surely win ‘Best village of the century’. However, there were more disturbing thoughts bubbling up to the surface: it looked more like a film set than a real, live, breathing village and as for the residents . . . a happy cheerful bunch? So they might appear but she was thinking more a bizarre fusion of The Little House On The Prairie and Stepford Wives.
She gave an involuntary shudder at the thought and walked on with somewhat more purpose. There was not a straight line to be seen anywhere in this village and as she followed the path downhill it was undulating, sinuous, random . . . but she persevered, she had to find a way out of this nightmare.
She thought for a moment that she could smell the sea but quickly dismissed the notion as her confused mind struggling to cope. However the mournful cry of a seagull in the distance raised her hopes and quickened her pace.
Eventually, as she rounded the last bend, the sight that emerged before her was as close to normality as she could possibly imagine: the sun was reflecting off the surface of the open sea, which reached to the far horizon, like a millpond, with no white horses to disturb the serenity; a few isolated sand dunes lay between her and a narrow sandy beach stretching out in both directions . . . stretching out of the village and back to the real world again.
She ran to the beach and tugged off her shoes. The feeling of the warm sand between her toes was as solid a reality as she needed at this moment. She ran and ran, her mood soaring, until she finally had to stop for breath. As she stood, arched over and panting, she could sense movement behind her.
She spun around and the sight before her eyes was bizarre. In her terror she turned and ran as if her life depended upon it but the . . . the thing . . . quickly caught up with her . . . engulfed her . . . Her world turned black.
* * *
She yawned and opened her eyes. The sunlight was streaming into her room. It seemed as if the forecast had been correct for once, it was going to be another beautiful day . . . but her tired mind snapped into full consciousness. She checked the clock, which showed a little after 8:30 and was exactly where it ought to be on the bedside table but the blackout blind was a couple of inches up from the window sill – just as it had been before.
She turned to her bedside chair where the clothes were randomly draped over the back.
She did not believe in déjà vu, instead she preferred ‘same shit, different day’.
She threw herself out of bed and peeped around the blind to the world outside – the strange village was still there. A glance through the other window showed the path out front to be empty, totally devoid of Stepford Grannies. Dispensing with a shower and breakfast she quickly dressed and pulled open the front door. Almost instantaneously the door opposite opened and a Stepford Granddad emerged with a watering can in his hand. He wished her ‘a very good morning’ and ‘isn’t it so much nicer now that the sun is shining’. In return he received nothing more than a broken smile and the sight of her back as she hurried off down the path.
She passed yet another man leaning on his front fence passing the time of day with a neighbour. She passed them so quickly that she neither heard nor cared if they had said a word to her.
She reached the village square and there was yet another man, over there, seated on an ornate wrought iron bench. She was in mid-step to turn away from him but something about him seemed different – different to the others. He was not smiling – in fact he looked as if he had the weight of the world upon his shoulders – he was considerably younger than the other residents and he was staring, directly and unashamedly, at her.
She paused for a second but when he made a subtle gesture with his head, inviting her to join him, she felt an overwhelming compulsion to comply.
He was smartly but casually dressed, he was in his early forties with neatly combed brown hair and the most intense blue eyes she had ever seen.
He patted the seat beside him and smiled a greeting. The smile appeared to be totally false and clearly tinged with fear. He wished her a ‘very good morning’ and then, as he bent his head forwards to look down at his shoes – and conceal his mouth – he said quickly, ‘Being watched – bizarre conversation – join in best you can.’
He looked up and smiled at her again and began a discourse on the niceties of the weather and other mundane, meaningless chatter but every time he dropped his head the conversation changed abruptly. Just like a ventriloquist his lips hardly moved as he told her, ‘Have to get away – will stop us – I know a way – only one chance.’
She listened intently, struggling to comprehend the gravity of the whispered words but, somewhere deep within them, she discovered that somehow she had total and utter confidence in this enigmatic stranger.
He gestured towards the colourful flower beds on the other side of the square. ‘Beautiful, aren’t they? For their entire lives they are fed and nurtured by the soil – but while it is clearly their benefactor, it also holds them prisoner.’ He pointed to the fountain. ‘The water, on the other hand, is as free as a bird. Free to race upwards into the sky and then to fall gracefully down onto the fountain. Then it is free to run off to freedom along a labyrinth of pipework – some may even be underneath there,’ and he nodded towards a narrow snicket between two of the cottages opposite.’ He smiled again but she could recognise that this time the smile was somehow more significant. ‘It would be nice if we could meet up again a little later?’ He gave an almost imperceptible inclination of his head towards the snicket opposite. ‘Shall we say 10:15? . . .’ He looked her in the eye and added with emphasis, ‘precisely.’
* * *
She watched as he walked away, looking surprisingly nonchalant and she thought long and hard about what he had said. She found it very difficult to trust anyone – in the Secret Service she had been trained to routinely dissect and rationalise every single conversation and to put it into one of three cubby holes in her mind: ‘unsure’, ‘trust’ or ‘mistrust’. However, this was a surreal situation, far removed from her normal experience and the strong likelihood that he was somehow incarcerated here, just the same as herself, proved to be the deciding factor and his plan was dropped into the ‘trust’ category.
She wanted so much to escape but she realised now that this was never going to be easy. However, his quiet insistence and obvious determination had fired her enthusiasm. She wanted to check her watch to see what time it was and how long she had to wait but she strongly suspected that her every move was being scrutinised and she did not want to make any outward gesture which might alert them to his plan. Instead she decided to have a stroll around the village and get her bearings. She took the pathway to her left, carefully avoiding any way which might lead down to the beach and the . . . thing. It was a beautiful day and under any other circumstances she would be quite enjoying her stroll but her training overrode the pleasure receptors and kept her focus firmly upon the task in hand.
The village was not uniform as she had first thought, every cottage appeared to be unique and individual with a character of its own. They were arranged along pathways similar to the one in which her ‘own’ was situated. She was surprised that there was no pub – she had thought that was obligatory for village life – but she was not surprised that there was a church. In keeping with the other buildings the flint covered church was small but immaculate. On the church tower was an ornate clock and she made a visible show of checking her watch against it. She had a little more than fifteen minutes before their intended meeting and she estimated that she was no than two or three minutes from the square. With that in mind she ensured that at 10:12 precisely she began to walk back from the church, ticking off the seconds in time with the rhythm of her steps.
As she entered the square it was empty but she was certain that it most certainly would not stay that way for long. She admired the flower beds as she passed but her internal clock was ticking carefully and at 10:15 precisely she arrived at the snicket where she turned off.
The alleyway was very narrow and reached beyond the rear of the cottages. There was no sign of the man but she was certain of his intentions and she kept walking. When she reached a point where another pathway crossed he stepped out from the shade. He took her hand and hissed, ‘Quickly. Down here.’ Together they ran further up the snicket to a small open area in which was a small wooden shed. He tugged the door open and pulled out two bicycles; they were perfectly standard bikes but in the shed there was also an enormous Penny Farthing which also looked to be roadworthy – but this was not the time to experiment.
She had not ridden a bike since her childhood but it all came back to her in an instant. Together they rode down the alleyways, taking turn after turn until, suddenly, they emerged into the open air. A grassy field lay before them, with sheep watching with ruminative eyes as they careered past them. The man lifted the bikes over a five barred gate onto a metalled road.
They made much better speed on the road but a few minutes later, as they passed a small track on their right he stopped and threw their bikes into a ditch.
She moved towards the track but he took her by the hand and said, ‘Not this one – too obvious.’ They ran back for a few hundred yards to a track they had passed a few minutes earlier, which was almost completely obscured by the undergrowth. Ten minutes later, at the top of a hill he stopped. ‘Take a break. I’ll keep lookout.’
She sat down beside him and in the distance could see the road and the track where they had abandoned the bikes. To her horror she could see a familiar and terrifying sight, it was a ball – a huge ball – but it was nothing like the ball she had kicked around the garden as a child; there was nothing childlike about this ball. It was pure white and white is traditionally the colour of purity, of childhood innocence but there was nothing innocent about this ball, it glowed with a luminous, malevolent intensity in the sunshine . . . and she had already experienced its power. It was at least seven feet tall and as it bounced at speed along the road its body compressed and distorted, sending shivers down the fabric and shivers down her spine.
The man crouched down beside her and peered from the cover of the shrubbery. ‘Have you had the misfortune to encounter Rover yet?’
She nodded her head, slowly but did not reply, she could not trust herself to share that dreadful experience just yet, she was far more concerned with where it was going to go.
Rover stopped at the bicycles and then turned up the track they had ignored. The man smiled. ‘Time to go before he works it out.’ As he helped her to her feet he hesitated. ‘It would be polite to ask you your name but they don’t seem to use names here.’ He extended his hand. ‘I am number 6, what number are you?’
She snapped back at him ‘I’m not a number, I’m a free woman!’