Déjà vu

I rode the motorcycle back in time.

I was still mostly in the present, as much as I ever am, when I got on the 10. By the time I hit the 405, the past was in sight.

As I roll through the stop sign the future is a distant memory, and an odd one. I’m remembering an ending that hasn’t happened.

I pull in to park. An uncomfortable feeling of discontinuity alerts me that something is wrong. Why do I worry that if I turn left and knock on the door, she might not answer? I might not set my helmet on the bench by the door. She might not embrace me and welcome me home.

I turn right. I go up stairs instead of down them. Knock on the wrong door. A friend from a time yet to come says “hello,” unaware that he doesn’t yet exist.

This is wrong.The pressure of the future is pressing down, collapsing time. I can’t breath.

Down stairs, out the door, and the pressure lessens.

On the bike, down the street, the two worlds pull apart.

On the ramp, faster and faster. The wind thrusts away the hands of the before-time; they squeeze tighter in response. Through my jacket, past my skin.

I park in the present, wondering why I didn’t turn left. Maybe I feared that the time travel hadn’t worked. But here’s the proof — the fingerprints of the past on my soul, my being.