The Deja Vu Room

I am walking into the forest, feeling my flesh seeping in and out of the ground. Beyond the trees are meadows—lush and acid green. Sheep. The forests are expansive. We live in tree houses. The sun sets—toxic orange bathing the landscape in poison, spreading thick and sticky like peanut butter. The air is thick, humid, hazy. We are playing the games of tribalism. I can feel the blood on my hands. Then I realize that I have been here before and cannot remember when or why.

The mosaic of the lights of traffic—headlights and brake lights accented by sparse turn signals that blink into eternity—ambient and lulling. They are all dreaming, and words from Kyle's lips fall, background noise, in the beige Honda Civic (2001 model): "Look at this shit. Hundreds of people collectively waiting. That's our, like, connection. We've got that in common with all these people in their cars. But that connection can't raise a torch to the, like, epic battles of the ancients, man. We don't even fight in masses anymore. We let computers do the fighting for us." No response, just the ambience of traffic. Orifices inhale and exhale. So it can be observed—stoned bourgeois teenagers easily mutate (almost radioactively) into elite social commentators. Of course, to a chemically altered young mind, it can feel good to know that the human experience is imbedded in every Homo sapiens’ subconscious mind, waiting to be unlocked with psychotherapy and various hallucinogens.

The course is cemented now, the trail mapped. Minds are set. Molds, lifestyles. You can look before you leap, but what is to keep you from indulging?

If you can’t feel this yet, you must be lost. Why are you unable to see the fall? I was trying to show you, but you closed your ears; you blocked my entry to your mind. And so you are sitting, and I am running.

Sebastian pulls the kids aside. He sits on his throne, cocks his eyebrow mischeiviously, but to a pompous extent. To make matters worse, he begins to stroke that pointy silver-grey goatee, a la Satan. But as ordered, the children oblige and gather round. Their eyes are blood shot, doused in the river that flows red with the carcasses of domesticated pets and domesticated women and their used Playtex tampons. The landscape slides back and forth, floating in poison—a horizon covered in yellow toxic haze and rotting souls, with flocks of paper currency traversing overhead.

"What do we want?" asks Little Sarah, eyes big and brown, chestnut curls bouncing over perked ears. Sebastian shakes his head. Little Sarah bawls.

In his assumed omnipotence, his assumed role, Sebastian knows the kids want that really epic shit. They need the instant gratification of the slaughter, lust, violence. Romans, the Spartans (well, all of the Greeks), the Egyptians of the Bible—the ancient civilizations that exemplified the character of man—envied. The peak of mankind’s testosterone: His glory, His pride, His messiah, His strength, His separation from the animal world that gave rise to all of civilization. And this shit is happening all over the world, at different times. Different races, cultures, are geographically isolated, evolving at different rates. And then the interactions. Genes split off in different directions like fireworks. "Let’s mourn it, kids. Let us mourn for just a little while."

And then Sebastian sighs back to the beginning:

Adam and Eve, Adam and Eve—where is the clue you promised you’d leave?

I remember that dream. I remember Eden’s trees and the species you told me I could name. I remember walking naked—immortal creatures with no need to reproduce. I remember in that garden, where Man and Woman were equal, gender did not exist. Gender did not exist. They had no reproductive organs. I remember when Eve established that feminine role of innocence and naivety, gullibly accepting the serpent’s offer. I remember the bitter anger and rejection of an authoritarian parent. Adam got the benefit of the doubt, but Eve succeeded. And I remember when Adam and Eve suddenly found that their relationship had changed. Sex? Children? I remember that sex and children did not exist in the garden with the Father. I remember. And so the metaphor goes—it has taken us this far. But this is just one perspective, and we can keep going.

The kids are standing in the parking lot, waiting. Waiting for an eternity that stretches into nothingness on the horizon. The bombs are exploding, the foul chemicals and smoke and debris filling the air—the mustard gaseous plague that is an oil butter spread over moldy bread. The world has lost its brilliance of color. It is simply gray, and devoid of color. But this is just one perspective, via pessimism—do not mistake it for prophecy.

The kids are kings and queens, and scoff in their crimson furs. Martini glasses, diamonds, drunken romps through the swamp. A collage of flesh and fabric dances to a syncopated beat that keeps going even after the world has ended.