You’re walking. Not rushing. Not meandering. Just one of those in-between gaits, the kind you get when you’ve got somewhere to be but nothing worth sprinting for. And then it happens. That flicker. That strange pulse of familiarity in a moment that should be new. The hallway you’re in smells like floor wax and recycled air. You hear a cough from down the corridor, and it sounds like punctuation. Like the end of a sentence you’ve already read.
It hits without warning, like a hiccup in the tape reel of your life. And for a second, or two, if you’re lucky, it’s like you’re watching yourself watch yourself. Nothing dramatic. You’re not astral projecting. You’re just standing there, coffee in hand, staring at a bulletin board or a dusty window or some guy picking lint off his coat. And somehow you know it. Every scrape of the chair leg. Every muted tick of the clock. Like the universe handed you a preview and forgot to take it back.
You don't say anything. Déjà vu doesn't beg for conversation. Try explaining it out loud and you sound like a malfunctioning fortune cookie. “It’s like I’ve been here before, but I haven’t. Except I have. But I haven’t.” People nod, then back away.
No one knows what causes it. Some say it's your brain processing a memory before your awareness catches up. Like thought traffic. Others say it's a temporal kink, the neurological version of stepping on your own shoelace. There are fancier theories involving parallel timelines and interdimensional echoes. But let’s be honest. Nobody really knows.
All I know is this: déjà vu never shows up when you want it to.
You won’t get it standing on a cliff watching a thunderstorm roll in. You won’t feel it the first time you kiss someone and mean it. You won’t even feel it during a car crash, when time actually does slow down and you see your life in weird little snapshots. The crack in the dashboard. The bug on the windshield. The radio still playing something upbeat.
No. It only hits in the mundane. Waiting in line at the post office. Unlocking your front door. Stirring something on the stove while the cat watches like it’s a test. The magic of déjà vu, if you can call it that, lives in the ordinary. It reminds you that repetition isn't just a symptom of life. It is life.
Maybe that’s the unsettling part. Not that you’ve lived this exact moment before, but that you’ve lived so many similar ones you can’t tell the difference. Like your brain is thumbing through the same ten seconds on a scratched vinyl record, catching in the same groove.
Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe those little flashes of familiarity are breadcrumbs. Reminders that you’re on the right path. That you’ve been circling something important. A place. A person. A version of yourself that almost made sense.
There’s a theory that we don’t remember days. We remember moments. And that feels about right. The rest gets sanded down into habit and haze. But déjà vu is like one of those moments poking through the drywall, reminding you that the house you live in is built on loops and patterns. You don’t always notice them. But they notice you.
Once, I had a bout of it in a diner. Red vinyl booths, laminated menus, waitress with a limp. I was reaching for the salt when it hit. The light, the clink of silverware, the buzzing neon beer sign. I froze with my hand halfway to the shaker. I knew—knew—what the guy in the next booth was about to say. And then he said it. Word for word. Something about raccoons and garbage day. Nothing profound. But it landed like lighting.
Afterwards, the moment slid away. I finished my eggs. Paid in cash. Walked out into a drizzle that smelled like gasoline on wet gravel. But it stayed with me. That secondhand certainty. That déjà vu. Like I’d brushed up against a seam in the fabric and for just a breath, saw the stitching.
You don’t get many of those. And they never explain themselves. But if you’re paying attention, they change the way you look at things. They soften the grind. Make you curious again.
And maybe that’s enough.
So the next time it happens—and it will—you don’t have to name it. Don’t poke it too hard. Just let it wash over you like an old song you can’t place. Smile like the punchline already happened. And keep walking.
The floorboard creaked. The light flickered. The coffee tasted faintly burnt.
Of course it did.