REPLAY

“Naked?”

“I swear, it’s never happened before.”

It was pointless to have made that point, for neither was the girl in question his daughter, nor was she one from a shrink, familiarity ruled out in this respect. The one in control was being excessively involved, a sign of interest than perversion, while the one out of it all looked eager, although uncertain, about telling this man everything that crossed his mind at that point of time.

“Never before?” the tone was disbelieving.

“Of course not!” he said. “But yes, and no… not naked”, he added at the sight of raised eyebrows.

“Not naked…”

“Not naked.”

He could have won cases if the shake of one’s head was counted as circumstantial evidence, and he replicated the same in this post-hypnotic scenario.

“Walls, walks, schoolrooms, places I have no clue about…”

“Have you seen her before?” he enquired, and on receiving a scoff, said “Well, you know what-”

“You’re kidding me.”

He stroked his brow. “You’ve got to open-”

“She’s the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen”, he confirmed. “And that’s not just a figure of speech.”

He made a circle around him, tracing with feet than fingers, and that prompted the one in the easy-chair to come up with something that sounded sensible enough to him, which really wasn’t too big a thing.

“You have a daughter?”

“I have a wife”, he said.

“I’ve never thought I’d feel like this”, he began, “and it’s not like I haven’t felt this before, it’s just… a novelty that’s strange, you know. Ancient Déjà vu, something like that”, he looked at him.

“I’m not crashing your party”, he clarified. “Take me through dessert.”

He smiled, cringing his eyes because he remembered Will Hunting prick Sean Maguire with a statement that went like, ‘You talk too much for one, for heaven’s sake’ and used that as a sort of reflex arc to get himself off the chair with his back to the man, preparing for the poetic discourse to come.

“I’ve never felt this… this infatuated”, he said. “I mean… I think this is not good and that scares me, you know, it’s like… I was what I ought to be to her and now I’d probably be something else and yeah, ‘Déjà vu’!” He squeezed the root of nose. “Just… just look at my hands, man.”

The mind-man clicked his tongue seeing it tremble and twitch beyond normalcy.

“What do you want to do about it?”

“Well…” he shrugged, smiling.

“Yeah”, he acknowledged. “But still, do you think-”

“I don’t know”, the admittance was solemn with weight of heart. “Hope she does.”