Arthur

Arthur Godwin knew the squirrel was going to die.  The thing was sitting in the grass at the edge of the street in front of his house, and it hadn’t even twitched a whisker toward the road where it was about to meet the tire of Mrs. Johnson’s old rusted Packard. Arthur looked down the street and, indeed, there was said mostly-green Packard, just turning the corner.

It was deja vu.  That’s what Grandpa had called it, anyway. Arthur had been feeling it more and more often the past few weeks; the feeling that he’d experienced something before.  Not just something like whatever it happened to be, but that exact experience.

He was feeling it just then and had been for a while before he saw the squirrel.  He had been playing with his G.I. Joes in the front yard when it hit him.  It started with the way the sun hit the grass and cast a shadow across General Hawk’s plastic face.  Just like every time before, he tried to shrug it off thinking about how often he played with those toys in just this spot (almost every day, lately), but the feeling persisted because it wasn’t just the grass.  It was the placement of all the other soldiers, the exact moment he heard Grandpa cough in the house behind him.  The squirrel sitting there near the street, nibbling at something that it held in its little brown hands.

Every new detail added to the surreal feeling as if, yes, he had known exactly what was going to happen right as it did.

The Packard was different.  It felt different.  This wasn’t just something that felt like he had seen it before.  He had known it was going to be there before it turned the corner.

And the squirrel. It was busy nibbling on whatever it had found down there in the grass near the curb. Arthur knew what was going to happen. Mrs. Johnson was going to come roaring down the street in her old tugboat of a car, the squirrel was going to run almost all the way across the street and then for some unknowable animal reason, turn back just in time to have its little walnut-sized head cracked under Mrs. Johnson’s back tire. It didn’t feel like he was seeing the future or anything. He just… knew what was about to happen.

Mrs. Johnson stepped on the gas and her Jolly Green belched a greasy puff of black smoke.  The squirrel paid it no mind. Its little tail flicked.  It crammed the rest of its snack in its mouth and tore across the street.  Mrs. Johnson was leaning forward so she could see over the steering wheel, her blue-gray hair filling up the space between her and the roof of the car.  She looked over at Arthur through her huge old-lady sunglasses and her typical old-lady scowl.

The squirrel turned.  The back of the car bounced, its shocks squeaking. Arthur heard Mrs. Johnson shout “Damn Rats!” and she stepped down even harder on the gas and roared on down the street.

It had played out, down to the last detail, the very last detail, exactly like he had known it would. Arthur sat for a moment looking at the smeared squirrel pancake in the street. Deja vu is weird, he thought. Grandpa said it was normal though.  Nothing to worry about.  Just the brain playing tricks on you.

Behind him, he heard the screech of the screen door and Grandpa’s voice. “Dinner, Artie.”

Arthur gathered his toys and went in for dinner.  Grandpa patted him on the shoulder as he walked in.

“Did ya get the commies today, kiddo?” Grandpa’s voice was an old warm blanket.

“Almost.  Maybe tomorrow.” Arthur dumped his G.I.s on the couch and walked toward the kitchen, where a thin blue haze of smoke still swirled through the beam of evening light coming through the window above the sink.

“Fried up some burgers.  Mac and Cheese.” Arthur’s favorite. The plates were already on the table, each one had half a box of Kraft Dinner and a near-blackened patty of beef. Between the plates only a bottle of ketchup and two glasses of water.

They sat.  Grandpa grabbed the ketchup first and whacked the bottle, pouring it in thick globs over both the burger and the macaroni. “How was school, kiddo? Learn anything?”

It was always the same question, and Arthur had his usual answer. “Not really.”

Grandpa laughed.

They ate, mostly in silence.  Arthur considered telling Grandpa about the squirrel, but he was starting to get the feeling that Grandpa was getting tired of hearing about it.  It had been happening more and more lately, and Grandpa always told him the same thing, so in the end, he decided to keep it to himself.

It happened again at the end of dinner. Grandpa had finished his food, put his plate by the sink, and was sitting at the table waiting for Arthur to finish up.  Arthur looked up to see him rubbing his eyes, and he had that uncanny feeling that this had all happened before. When Grandpa spoke, Arthur felt like he could almost mouth the words along with him. “Got a nasty headache this evening, kiddo. Took some aspirin before dinner and that didn’t seem to kick it, so I think I’m gonna head on to bed early.”

“Alright.  I’m sorry, Grandpa.”

“It’s fine.  Just a headache.  Probably be gone tomorrow.  You mind to get the dishes?”

Arthur almost always did the dishes anyway. “That’s fine.”

Grandpa smiled at him and stood. “Thanks, Artie.”  Grandpa looked over at the clock on the microwave.  “It’s a school night.  In bed by 9?”

“Sure.”

“Don’t watch anything I wouldn’t let you watch on TV.”

“I won’t.”

The deja vu passed then.  It was a short one. Grandpa gave him a sly look and then rubbed him on the top of the head as he walked by. “Good night then, Artie.”

“Night, Grandpa.  Love you.”

“I love you too, kiddo.”

Grandpa plodded over to the stairs and then up to his bedroom, where he closed the door and left Arthur to himself.

That night, as he lay in bed, he thought again about the squirrel. Did he really know what was going to happen before it did? Was that just his brain playing a trick on him? Could he… Could he tell the future? He had tried to imagine being able to tell the future before (what 11 year old boy hadn’t?) but this didn’t feel like that.  He wasn’t seeing a vision, and he hadn’t been trying to look for anything. It just… happened.  He just knew what was going to happen next, like it was a movie he’d seen 100 times.

Arthur tried to do it again.  He mustered all of his brain power and tried to see into the future.

Nothing happened.

And then he fell asleep.

— — —

It happened again the next day at school.  Not the normal deja vu, the weird, I-know-what-is-about-to-happen kind.

Arthur sat at lunch as he always did with the same friends he sat with every day. Jimmy and Jesse sat across from him today. Jimmy opened his bright red Transformers lunch box, while the rest of them poked at the hearty but depressing tuna casserole the lunch lady had spooned onto their trays.

“Gah! Jimmy, what is that smell,” Arthur said.

Jesse leaned over and peered into the depths of the lunchbox. “It’s a sandwich of some kind.”

Jimmy grimaced and looked at his friends. “Egg.  Salad.”

There was a collective groan. Jimmy pulled out the Thermos and sat it gingerly to the side, then reached in and retrieved the plastic bagged sandwich, holding it up by the corner, like a dead fish.

“Gag me with a spoon,” said Jesse. “And I thought tuna casserole was bad.”

Jimmy, still holding the sandwich, looked down at Arthur’s tray. “No way man,” said Arthur. “Not a chance. Ask Jesse.” Arthur crammed a bite of the casserole in his mouth.  No trading today.

And there it was. Just like with the squirrel, he knew what was about to happen, down to every last detail, ending with his school uniform drenched in bright red Kool-Aid. He felt the blood draining from his face as he imagined what Grandpa would say about the stains. His friends didn’t notice, though. They had just started their negotiation.

“Just a simple trade,” Jimmy said, “nice and simple. Sandwich for casserole.”

“I don’t think so. Gotta sweeten the deal, what else do you have in there?”

Jimmy reached into the box and pulled out a fruit cup, followed by one large oatmeal raisin cookie. Arthur loved oatmeal raisin, but Jesse…

“Oh come on. Raisins? Barf. No way.” Jesse began to dig into his tuna.

“Wait!” Jimmy was near frantic. “I don’t have to take the casserole, what about your peaches and green beans?”

Jesse narrowed his eyes and appeared to consider this for a moment. “Nah,” he said.  “Sorry.”

Jimmy unscrewed the lid of his thermos. I’ve got Kool-Aid!

Here it comes thought Arthur, quietly horrified.

Jesse shook his head. “Not today, Jimmy.  Just eat it.”

Jimmy pushed the thermos toward Jesse. “Come on, man.”

Jesse reached up and began to push it away, just like Arthur knew would happen. Jesse would push it away, Jimmy would shove it at him again and Jesse would knock the thing out of his hands.  It would land with a clatter right in the middle of Arthur’s tuna, splashing on his shirt and spilling on the nicer of his two pairs of khakis.

So Arthur did the obvious thing.  He stood up, reached over, and took the Thermos out of Jimmy’s hand. “Take it easy, guys.”

As he did this, he felt dizzy. His vision blurred strangely, and he caught a whiff of some strange acrid smell, like oil, or gas.  Something chemical. He sat the thermos down on the table and rubbed his eyes with both hands, then blinked and shook his head. As he did this he thought he heard a faint whisper, some strange, wordless hiss… But it was gone almost as soon as it started.

“You ok?” asked Jimmy.

“We’re just playing around,” said Jesse.

Arthur blinked.  The strange feeling–and the deja vu–passed.

Jimmy reached up and snapped his fingers in Arthur’s face. “Hey… Earth to Godwin.”

Arthur took a breath and sat down. “I’m fine.  Just thought you were about to dump that thing on me.  Grandpa would just about beat me stupid if I stained my uniform.”

His friends nodded knowingly.

Jimmy reached over and picked up the Thermos. “Sorry.”

Arthur shrugged at him and returned to the casserole.

“I just hate eggs.”

When Arthur got home from school, Grandpa was sitting in his chair in the living room, his back to the front door.  The lights were off.  Some western was playing on the TV, but the sound was turned way down, nearly inaudible.

“Hey Grandpa,” Arthur said.

Grandpa flinched and grunted.  He sat up in his chair and turned around. “Ah, hey Artie.  School out already?” He looked around the room like he was trying to find a clock and rubbed his eyes.

“Were you asleep?” It wasn’t too uncommon for Grandpa to take a nap in his beloved, tattered La-Z-Boy, but he was almost never still asleep when Arthur got home from school.  If Arthur had known he might not have barged in so loudly.

“Ah… Maybe.  Don’t worry.  Just sat down to rest my eyes.  Must have drifted off a bit.”

“Head still bothering you?”

Grandpa rubbed his eyes again and swayed his head back and forth. “A little bit.  But that’s alright. I took some aspirin right before I sat down, I think it’s just starting to kick in.”

“You’ve had a headache almost every day for…..” Arthur shrugged.  He didn’t know how long it had been.  A few weeks?  A month? “Maybe you should tell Doctor Morris about it.”

“Bah. I’m just getting old, Artie.  It happens.  Things start wearing down.”

“I don’t think people have headaches just because they’re old.”

“You might be right. The aspirin usually kicks it though.  If it makes you feel better, I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon.  Morris wanted to check up on that mole he cut off.  I’ll mention it to him while I’m there. Maybe he’ll send me to the vet to get a CAT scan.” Grandpa laughed at this and Arthur smiled.  If he was willing to joke like that–quality of said joke notwithstanding–he couldn’t be feeling too bad.

“Anyway,” said Grandpa, “How was school today?  Learn anything?”

“Not really.”

“Any more deja vu?” Grandpa asked it nonchalantly, almost like he wasn’t expecting an answer, but Arthur thought back to lunchtime.  He could remember the Kool-Aid stain on his clothes like it had actually happened.  He even looked down to make sure it hadn’t, but of course his uniform was perfectly clean. He remembered that sludgy chemical smell.  Had that been part of it?

“Hey, kiddo, you look like you saw a ghost.  Everything alright?”

Arthur blinked. “Yeah, I’m fine. I… deja vu is a weird feeling. It messes with my head sometimes.”

“It is strange, for sure.  It’s odd that you get it so often.  Maybe you need the CAT scan.  I can call ole Henry Bartch over at FurryFriends if you want…” Grandpa laughed again, but this time Arthur didn’t feel as good about the joke.

“It’s OK, Grandpa. It doesn’t happen that often.”

“Probably puberty.  Your body is…”

“Gah! Grandpa!”

Grandpa smiled, “I know, I know.  Gross.” He rolled his eyes dramatically. “But it’s true, that can mess with your head as much as anything.”  Grandpa took a deep breath before, thankfully, changing the subject. “Whatcha want for dinner, kiddo?”

“We still have that lasagna in the freezer?”

“We do.  That sounds good. I’ll throw it in the oven.  Why don’t you go play for a while and I’ll call you when it’s ready.”

Arthur went up to his bedroom and threw his backpack on the bed. He sat in the old kitchen chair at his writing desk and poked around at the action figures he had set up there, but his mind was elsewhere… And then… That feeling again.

He saw the toys arranged just like this.  The dim light filtering through his window blinds.  His backpack on the bed. Grandpa in the kitchen, digging through the freezer. Grandpa found the lasagna and placed it on the counter by the avocado green coffee percolator. Arthur felt all of this as it was happening; as if it had already happened.  Rewind the tape! Play it again!

It was such a bizarre–

His stomach dropped in horror as the deja vu once again slipped forward.

Grandpa was turning on the oven, and then he would sit with his elbows on the table rubbing his eyes, then his temples. Then he would begin to shake.  It would start subtly, just a tremor in his hands, but then he would flop over in his chair, his eyes rolling, a thick line of spit trailing from his open mouth.  Then he’d hit the floor. His head would make a meaty crack on the linoleum and then his body would quake.  His legs would thrash, knocking over the chair he had just fallen out of.  Blood from a gash somewhere near his eye smearing all over the floor.

And Arthur was frozen.

Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew he needed to get up.  Run down the stairs–even now, Grandpa was just sitting down, elbows on the table–do something.  But he couldn’t move.  The absolute soul-crushing horror of what was about to happen.  He couldn’t watch it.

Arthur squeezed his eyes shut.  He grabbed the side of his head.

Grandpa was rubbing his eyes, then his temples.

No no no no no no no. Stop it! Stop it! Stop! Arthur was screaming in his head, trying to drown out what he was–somehow–witnessing.

That weird thick odor filled the room, but Arthur didn’t notice it in the moment.

Make it STOP!

Grandpa’s hands were just beginning their tremor… And then they stopped.  Grandpa sat up in his chair and shook his head slightly.  Rolled his shoulders and stood up.

Arthur felt dizzy. The scene that he had just known was going to unfold wasn’t swept away, but this new one, what had actually happened somehow existed alongside it in his head, creating a strange buzzing dissonance.  He began to notice the oil-slick smell then, which was thick enough to make him cough.

He fell onto his bed and pulled a pillow over his head, waiting for the feeling to pass. Blessedly it was already beginning to fade.  His ears were ringing.  Well, they weren’t ringing necessarily.  It was more of a fuzz, like TV Static.  As the dizziness and smell faded it became more pronounced. It almost sounded like… Words? If it was someone talking or whispering, it was in a language he couldn’t understand.

Couldn’t he? That deja vu feeling crept back again.  He couldn’t understand the words.  He didn’t recognize them one little bit. The voices didn’t even sound human, but he had a sense.  He knew what it meant.

Yesssss we love it, yesssssssss. Getting closerrrrrrr.  We neeeeeeed it.

Arthur heard his door open. “You ok kiddo?”

He pulled the pillow off of his head and sat up.  Grandpa was fine.  There was no bleeding gash on his head, his eyes were clear and everything seemed… Normal.

“Artie? What’s going on?”  Real concern spread over Grandpa’s face.

“I…” Arthur took a breath. “I don’t know.  I… I thought…”

Grandpa waited.

“I thought something happened to you. With your head.”

Grandpa’s hand went to his temple. “Actually, I’m feeling pretty good at the moment.  I thought it was gonna get me good when I was digging in the freezer, but I sat down and closed my eyes for a second and it passed.  I’m alright, kiddo.  Really.”

Arthur just nodded.

Grandpa frowned. “What has you so spooked?”

Arthur wasn’t sure he wanted to answer, but he did anyway. “It’s the deja vu.  I was just sitting up here at my desk feeling like this exact thing had happened before, but then… I felt like I knew what was going to happen next.  I… I just knew you were going to–” Going to what? Arthur didn’t know the word for a seizure just yet, though he would soon become all too familiar with the word, but that was surely what he had seen. “Going to get hurt.  I just knew it.”

Grandpa came over and sat down next to him on the bed.  He put a warm hand on Arthur’s shoulder and pulled him close. “I’m ok, Artie.  If the headaches really have you that spooked, I’ll promise to mention it to the Doc tomorrow, but I’m just fine, I am.”

Arthur leaned his head into Grandpa’s chest.

“I’m old, but I’m not that old.”

Arthur’s voice was very soft. “I already lost Mom.  And Grandma. I just don’t know what…” He couldn’t bear to finish the sentence.

Grandpa squeezed his shoulder even tighter. “Oh, Arthur,” he said.

There wasn’t much more to say after that.  They sat there on Arthur’s bed in silence for a few more moments.

Grandpa shifted. “I guess the oven is plenty hot by now.”

“Thanks, Grandpa,” Arthur said.

Grandpa stood and walked to the door.  At the door, he turned back. “We’re gonna make it Artie.” And then he stepped out.

———

The next day at school was rough. Arthur couldn’t focus on much of anything.  He couldn’t get the image of Grandpa thrashing around on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood to leave his mind.  He saw every little detail as if it had really happened; the way Grandpa’s thinning gray hair mopped and smeared in the blood, the little bubble from his nose.  The tense, pained groaning sound he made.

Arthur was sitting in his 5th grade classroom and the teacher was pacing up and down the rows of desks. She leaned over and tapped on Arthur’s desk

“Arthur Godwin, what are you doing?” she whispered. “You haven’t answered a single question!”

His focus snapped back to what he was supposed to be working on, the photocopied and stapled paper sitting on the desk in front of him.  Mathematics. Unit 7 Assessment.

“I’m sorry Mrs. Collins. Daydreaming, I guess.”

“Well, you better get to work, you’ve wasted 10 minutes already.  I can’t let you work on this all day long!”

“I will.  Sorry.”

“It’s ok.”  Mrs. Collins knelt next to his desk, coming down to his level, with a concerned look on her face. “Are you feeling alright, Arthur?”

He was normally a good student.  Didn’t get the best grades maybe, but he was polite and diligent in class.  Last year, after Mom died, he’d had a few rough months at school, but he had pulled it together. The teachers though; they all knew about it. Every time anything happened with him, every time he got a funny look on his face, they seemed to remember all about it. Wanted to talk about it, or send him to Mr. Bigley, the Counselor.

“I’m fine, Mrs. Collins.” Was he though? “Just thinking about… Baseball.” That seemed reasonable enough of an excuse, and it seemed to placate Mrs. Collins.

She tapped on his desk once again as she stood. “Well get to it then!”

Arthur got to it, but he still found he had a hard time paying any attention to what he was doing.  Before he knew it, he was trading papers with Jesse, who sat just behind him, to grade as a class.

As they neared the bottom of the first page Jesse kicked Arthur’s chair and whispered, “Hey Godwin, what gives man?”

Arthur leaned over subtly so he could side-eye Jesse, who was leaning forward way too conspicuously. “Stop it, Collins will hear you,” said Arthur.

“You want me to cheat for you?”

“What? No!”

“Art, you did… bad.”

Arthur’s heart sunk at that.  Of course, he had choked.  He could barely remember answering the questions.  Grandpa would not be pleased.  Not be pleased at all.  The last time Arthur had gotten a bad grade he’d been grounded for a week.

But. Grandpa always said lying and cheating were the one thing he couldn’t abide. We gotta stick together Artie. We gotta have some faith in each other.

“Don’t cheat.  It’s fine,” he said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, it’s fine.”

“Suit yourself, Godwin.”

Arthur ended up with an F. 11 correct out of 25 questions: 44% (Collins had made them calculate the percentages, of course she did.) He’d have to figure out something to say to Grandpa later.  Maybe he’d just have to take the grounding.  There were worse things than that–a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, for instance.

The rest of his day didn’t go much better, but at least there were no more tests for him to fail. He drifted through the day as best he could, his mind bouncing between the memory of what he’d seen the night before, and a grim anticipation of what Grandpa would say when the math test came out of his backpack.  At least he hadn’t been hit with any more deja vu. Yet.

That waited until he got home.

It began right as the bus dropped him off, and it started just the same as the rest. Something about the situation felt so uncannily familiar, and it wasn’t just that he’d been dropped off by the bus every day after school for basically his whole life.  No, it was the specifics. What the bus driver said to him when he stepped off the bus.  The squeal of the door swinging shut. Everything.

And then… As before, the experience slid forward. Not only had he experienced getting off the bus before, he knew just how the next few minutes were going to play out.

But what if it didn’t?  Hadn’t he stopped the Kool-Aid? Had he actually saved Grandpa last night? Arthur was beginning to believe that was what had happened. He had seen a bad thing, and he had somehow willed it to stop.

“Grandpa doesn’t need to know about the test,” Arthur spoke aloud, softly, but audibly.  Maybe that gave it more power. “He’ll forget to ask about school today.  Won’t even notice my backpack on my back.”

Arthur stepped up on the front porch.

He smelled that thick sludgy smell again.  This time stronger than ever.

He opened the door. Grandpa had his coat on.

He heard those strange fuzzy voices, which he understood, even though he could not say how he understood.

Yesssssss, they said. Only a little more! We’re so closeeeee!

“Hey, Artie. Jim Morris called this morning, he had some emergency he had to tend to so he had to move my appointment back a few hours.  Hope you don’t mind me running out on you! There’s some chili in the Crock Pot if I don’t make it back by whenever you get hungry.”

Grandpa walked out the front door, pausing only a moment to rustle Arthur’s hair. “Love ya, kiddo,” he said. Grandpa took the stairs, then climbed into the old tan Buick station wagon that sat in the driveway.  As he backed out onto the street he waved back at Arthur.

Arthur barely noticed.  His head was spinning, his vision blurred.  That thick, crude, acrid smell engulfed him.

He stumbled back into the house, not bothering to shut the front door, and fell onto the sofa. Both realities were doing battle in his head.  He had known, that once he got into the house Grandpa would ask him how his day was.

Fine.

Learn anything?

Not really.

Something bothering you? Something happen at school?

And then Arthur would tell the truth.

But none of that had happened.  Somehow he still felt like it had, even though he knew, without a doubt that Grandpa had been running out the door and didn’t have time for any of that conversation.

Had Arthur actually changed it?

As he lay face down on the sofa, the dizziness began to fade.  Was that getting stronger? The odor too. What was that? It wasn’t quite like anything else he had smelled specifically, but it reminded him of Gasoline. Or oil. Something thick and sludgy.

And the voices?

Was he really hearing voices? Or was he just imagining that?  He tried to remember, but doing so made his head begin to spin again. The sound was strange and fuzzy and sounded nothing like speaking. Again he tried to remember, but it only made him dizzier.  In the moment he definitely had the sense that the sound meant something, but now there was nothing. He put that out of his mind and tried to relax until the dizziness passed.

A few minutes later he sat up and rubbed his eyes. He carefully stood, and when everything felt normal he went up to his bedroom, stopping to close the front door on his way by.

He didn’t get much time to rest, however, before the deja vu came rushing back… And this time it was even worse. Arthur was sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed idly flipping through his book of baseball cards when he became aware of something that was happening, or about to happen, all the way across town. It was Grandpa again.

Grandpa was sitting up on one of those weird reclining tables in Dr Morris’s office.  He’d been checked in by a nurse and was waiting for the Doctor to come in. His head must have really been killing him–his eyes were pressed shut, the heels of his hands pressing hard on the side of his head.

He began to tremble.

Arthur knew what came next too. He didn’t have to watch it play out, he knew.

Dr. Morris would come in just in time to see Grandpa hit the floor.  He’d shout down the hallway and Grandpa would be whisked away, and put on an Ambulance which would speed to the nearest Hospital, in the next town over.

Arthur could not let this happen. The thought of the dizziness, the smell, the creepy not-words sound gave him pause, but only for a moment. He would not let this happen!

So he stopped it.

The dizziness came, and so did that thick stench–somehow even heavier than before–but he stopped it.

The tremble in Grandpa’s hands drifted away and he sat up blinking.

He’s almost done it! We’re going to make it! Yessssssss! Mooooore!

The Doctor stepped into the room, reading a clipboard.  As the door shut behind him, he looked up and smiled at Grandpa.

It will happen today! We’re almost there!

Arthur’s deja vu vision of Grandpa faded, and even though Arthur felt like he had a flock of starlings in his skull, he had saved Grandpa! He saw the bad thing and made it go away!

He realized that at some point he had fallen to the floor and sat up, which made his room spin wildly. Closing his eyes didn’t help the sickening merry-go-round, and when he tried to stand, he stumbled falling back to his knees. So, he simply lay down on the floor and waited for it to pass.

As he lay there, his ears began to ring. The dizziness wasn’t dissipating… and though he was too distracted to notice it immediately, the smoggy polluted odor was coming back. The ringing in his ears increased and began to morph into more of a dull roar, like the pulsating noise of the ocean.  It came in waves, and then quite suddenly, it snapped into the noise.  The staticy sound that he’d been associating with voices. He couldn’t make out any words, but he never had been able to do it before, he’d just had the sense that he knew what the sounds meant.

At first, he couldn’t get any meaning out of these sounds, it was just a sound that echoed around in his head, making the dizziness worse, making his stomach churn and his skin crawl.

The deja vu hit him again, and with it, the voices.

You’ve done well! We’re almost through! We just need one more!

Arthur got the sense of multiple voices responding. One more!

Everybody ready?

Ready!

Here we go!

Grandpa was getting into his car in the parking lot of the doctor’s office.

Arthur knew what was coming next. That’s how the deja vu worked.  He wasn’t watching things play out scene by scene.  He just knew. It was a book he’d read before, and it wasn’t a happy one.

Grandpa would get into his car and begin driving home.

The tremor would start again.

He would pass out, falling forward, his forehead bouncing on the steering wheel.

And then….. Arthur could barely stand it.

But he could fix it.

It’s time!

Arthur ignored the voices.

Ignored the thickening chemical putrescene.

Ignored the room spinning.

He put everything out of his mind except for Grandpa. “No!” he shouted, aloud. He envisioned the happier ending to this story–Grandpa making it home safe to share a bowl of that chili.

Arthur saw Grandpa’s hand begin to tremble on the steering wheel.

It’s working! It’s working! We’re through!

The trembling did not stop. Grandpa winced as the headache came back stronger than ever, blinking his eyes.

Arthur pushed. He tried with all his might, flexing every muscle in his body to change the future he’d seen.

In his bedroom, a slight breeze began to blow.  Posters on the wall fluttered gently.  A paper that was sitting on his desk floated to the ground.  Arthur, lying on the ground, felt his hair wave, gently. He was almost entirely unaware of this at first.

Grandpa’s shoulders began to quake.  His arms locked up and his eyes rolled back in his head.  His body jerked and with it, the steering wheel turned. His head rocked forward, cracking on the steering wheel and then he fell over sideways onto the bench seat of the Buick.

The wind in Arthur’s bedroom gathered intensity and began whipping everything into a room-sized cyclone.

Arthur screamed.

The posters were ripped from the wall. The quilt from his bed. Books were picked up from the floor and thrown around the room.

Grandpa’s car, careening driverless down the interstate began to change lanes, and that was the last Arthur could see.  His attention was fully back in his bedroom where almost all of his possessions were being blown around in a cataclysmic fury.

Then, before him, a dark, inky spot appeared, floating in the air. It seemed liquid, it pulsated and bobbed, and grew.

More of the dark oily clouds appeared, tiny at first, like stars blinking into existence in the night sky, and those too began to grow.  They did not appear to be affected by the wind.

Arthur had that now-familiar sickening sense that this had all happened before.  As insane as that was, he felt like he was living out something he’d lived some other day, wind and ink spots and everything.

The spots grew and elongated until they were the size and shape of small humans.  There were four of them.

The wind stopped and everything that was being thrown around in the bedroom fell to the floor, some of the papers floating gently down in silence.

The newcomers spoke then to Arthur directly.

Their voices were an unintelligible fuzz, the garble of a dead radio station. It didn’t even sound like words to Arthur… Just noise.

But somehow, as he had all along, he understood.

Thank you, human.

Arthur did not respond.  Thank you for what?

We are sorry for your loss of the other human.  We could tell how much you admired them.

“Grandpa?” Arthur’s voice was weak and ragged.

We needed to get through, you see… Our world–

Our old world, Another of the creatures said.

Indeed. We needed a new home, and this one seems most suitable for us.

“What happened to Grandpa!” Arthur cried.

You saw it did you not? He had a seizure and crashed his vehicle.

“Why? What? No!”

You did keep him alive a few days longer than he should have lived you know. You should be happy!

“He’s dead?” Arthur fell to his knees.  He felt like he was going to be sick.

This human does not seem very intelligent.

It does not.

Let us hope they are not all so useless as this one.  We need some that can actually follow orders.

No matter, he had enough focus to give us the power to get through.

You think any of the others have made it yet?

Probably. Let us go and see.

And with that, the inky creatures left the room, floating right through the wall out of the house.