I Knew the Whole Conversation Before It Happened

It happened in a completely ordinary meeting, which is what makes it stay with me. Six of us around a table, a status update, nothing memorable. And then, mid-sentence, the deja vu hit, but stronger and stranger than the vague kind everyone gets.

I did not just feel like I had been there before. I knew what was coming. Not a fuzzy sense. Specific words. I knew that my coworker was about to make a particular joke about the deadline, and he did, word for word. I knew that someone would interrupt him to ask about the budget, and she did. I knew, with a calm and horrible certainty, that the man beside me was going to reach for his coffee and knock it into his own lap, and ten seconds later he did exactly that, swearing softly, grabbing napkins.

And I knew how the meeting would end. I knew the exact sentence my manager would close on, a slightly awkward line about circling back next week. As she said it, I found myself mouthing the words along with her, silently, a fraction ahead, like singing a song you have heard a thousand times. I could feel each word arriving in her mouth just before it did.

The feeling that this had all already happened was total. Not that I predicted it. That I remembered it. As if I were living a scene for the second time and my body knew all the marks.

When the meeting broke up I sat in the chair for a minute, a little shaken. My coworker asked if I was all right. I said I had a headache. What I actually had was the unshakeable sense that time had, for about four minutes, played me a tape I had already watched. I have never been able to explain it, and I have never wanted it to happen again.