When Finn entered the coffee shop, he immediately spotted Cerise and went to join her. They had experienced the same strange feeling yesterday, was it possible that it had happened today too. He ordered a black coffee and went to join her, sitting down across from her. “It happened again,” he said, not wasting any time in getting to the point, his voice soft. “I was helping a patient and I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be doing that, like I didn’t know what i was doing. Has anything happened to you today?”
Cerise had been here for a while now, on her third impossibly sweet adulterated coffee beverage, possibly trying to drown her feelings in sugar. She didn’t bother raising her head as she saw the quasi-stranger named Finn sit across from her. “Hi to you too.” She replied, stirring the whipped cream into her drink. “Yeah. I woke up around the asscrack of dawn, looked at my boyfriend in bed and had a very distinct feeling that I was trespassing. Like, so distinct that I bolted off the bed, tiptoed around my own place and left before he even woke up so he wouldn’t… I don’t know, see me?”
“Besides the work thing, I was cleaning my room and moved the box that I keep my Olympic medals in and I felt like I was stealing something. I put it down and then I came here. Now it seems weird because they’re mine, I remember winning them but now it doesn’t seem as clear as it did, if that makes any sense.”
“No, it makes sense. I’ve been feeling like that a lot too, about work, my boyfriend, my sisters...Speaking of work, I’m a florist, right, like I studied for it and everything, I want my own shop. But today, randomly, I was super annoyed by the sight of flowers. I was really aggravated the entire time and I have no idea why but I know it’s to do with the flowers.” Cerise sighed. “If it weren’t for you feeling this stuff to I’d honestly think I’m going nuts.”
Finn shook his head. “I wonder if it’s just us? Or if it is just us, why us? We aren’t connected in any way that I know of. We aren’t related so why would it be us and not someone that we know?” It made no sense to him but he definitely felt off and in a way it was good to know that he wasn’t alone.
Cerice shrugged with a huff. “Excellent questions I can’t answer, dude. If I knew that, this would make sense.”
“You’ve got a point. I guess until we know more, we should probably just keep this to ourselves,” he said.
Something was bothering Zasha and she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was or why it was bothering her so much as she was strolling around town. She’d finished with her classes and as she picked up a takeaway coffee she was walking by the riverwalk when she overheard two people she didn’t know too well talking about how things just felt off, the problem was, was that Zasha was having the same feeling. Pausing she moved some long blond hair behind her left ear as she listened for a few moments trying to decide if she should come speak with them or not.
Sighing she decided it couldn’t hurt to try and join the conversation. “Hey,” she greeted with a soft smile. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, it’s just, I’ve been having the same feeling.”
Finn looked up at her and once more he felt that weird sensation. He’d seen her before but not here although he couldn’t imagine where. “Have a seat,” he said. “I’m sorry I don’t your name. I’m Finn, this is Cerise.” Taking a sip of his coffee, he waited a moment before he spoke again. “This is the second time it’s happened to me. Yesterday and then again today. Just now as well, it was like I’d seen you somewhere before but not here and I don’t know you so that’s really strange I was at work and it was like I wasn’t supposed to be there or be able to do what I was doing.”
The feeling she and Finn had been having was somehow broad yet specific enough to pinpoint, all at the same time. Even so, Cerise had most definitely not been expecting anyone else to know what the hell they had been taking about, let alone join in with their own experience. Her brow knitted in confusion as the blonde girl joined in and she was more than happy to let Finn take the lead here.
“Um, yeah, for me it all started when this complete stranger to me seemed familiar enough that I went up to greet him like we’re old pals or something.” She motioned for Finn as she talked. “Even though I’m fairly sure we’d never even met before. And today, well… I don’t know how much you’ve heard but I don’t think it’s normal to look at your own boyfriend and think ‘oh shit I shouldn’t be here’, you know?”
Zasha smiled softly looking between them. “I’m Zasha,” she said as she sat down with them. “I keep just getting this feeling that we aren’t supposed to be here, that we should be somewhere else, that we live somewhere else.” She frowned slightly as she thought about what Cerise said about her own boyfriend.
“I imagine that probably isn’t the most normal feeling someone has when they look at their boyfriend, I keep feeling like I’m seeing someone when I’m actually not.” She added to the conversation.
“Besides the work thing, I found some things in my apartment that are mine but I felt like they weren’t and I was afraid someone would call the cops,” he shrugged. “Then I remembered and I was okay but every now and then I get this feeling that this place isn’t right. Like you said, we’re supposed to be somewhere else but I haven’t a clue where.”
Cerise scratched her head in thought. “You guys know this sounds completely nuts, right? We sound certifiable right now. What’s this, we’re awakening to past lives? This is nuts. We need to figure out what we’ve got in common so we can figure out who or what is making us insane. This has got to be some kind of drug or something.”
“What do you mean things?” Zasha asked Finn at when he mentioned things in his apartment. She looked back to Clarice and smiled. “I don’t think it sounds insane if the three of us are all getting feelings of something that is,” she paused trying to figure out the right word, “different, or off, maybe it is past lives.” Zasha really couldn’t believe she just said that outloud.
“Olympic medals,” Finn replied. “From Vancouver in 2010 and then Sochi in 2014. Downhill skiing. I just stared at them because I can ski but not good enough to win a medal.” he paused for a moment. “Damn, there it is again. Thinking I couldn’t have done that but now it’s gone and I can remember it. I don’t think we’re going insane but maybe Zasha is right, maybe we’ve led other lives.”
Cerise eyed Zasha. “It can still sound crazy even if it’s a shared feeling. A whole town full of people in France died from non-stop dancing as a group, for God’s sake.”
She remained quiet on the past lives hypothesis having traction, except to scoff in Finn’s direction when he completely ignored that she had suggested past lives first, and Zasha had merely agreed that it could be possible. After a moment, however, Cerise raised her head. “Nope, no. That would require us to have lived and died before we were born, and so remember stuff from then. Some of the stuff that doesn’t match overlaps; Finn, you were already alive when your medals were won, for instance.”
“That’s true. I hadn’t thought about that. I admit that I don’t know a lot about reincarnation other than what I’ve read or seen in a movie.” Finn didn’t really believe in the supernatural at all but just thinking that brought a sharp pain to his head and he blinked. “Shit, that was weird. I just thought something and it was like someone or something didn’t want me to think that and I got this head pain. Maybe I’m going mental after all.”
Zasha listened and gave Cerise a soft smile, she knew it had been her idea. She leaned back as she tried to piece things together. “I’ve never really believed in it, but alternate reality?” Shaking the feeling away she looked at both of them. “That’s insane.” Zasha was so by the book, law, international law, science fiction wasn’t her area.
“Well the basis is literally that you die and you go on some kind of wheel and get your soul put into someone else who’s about to be born. You’re supposed to achieve, like, enlightenment so you reincarnate as long as you need to in order to learn something.” Cerise explained, though she couldn’t exactly trace this knowledge to its source. She furrowed her brow at Finn and his headache. “I don’t know, if you’re getting head pain…I keep saying it might be someone else doing this to us and poison has neurological effects! I’m telling you guys.”
When Zasha herself admitted something about this to be insane, Cerise motioned in her direction with one hand, eyes wide. “See?! It is fucking coo-coo bananas even though we’re all going through it. I think we have to wait and see for a while where this goes. Let’s keep in touch and whatever, and maybe keep a journal of weird shit.”