As I sat beneath the gnarled oak at dusk, a whisper of familiarity swept through the park. The air seemed to ripple like mirage over heated pavement—yet here, the sun’s amber glow barely kissed the horizon.
It first slipped into my mind as a feather on a breeze, the assembly of car horns blending into a symphony, orchestrated by nature. Everyone was leaving, heading to places only their shadows recognized, but I lingered on this patch of worn grass.
There’s a taste of salt on the window ledge, a book abandoned, pages ruffled by wind, and in each corner a secret bears witness. Fragments of dialogues coalesce in the golden hour, sentences begun but never completed, as if each word was a step retraced in an endless loop.
'This isn’t the first time,' I thought, though the rationale escaped me. A trickle of laughter from an unseen group pulls at the corners of memory—a mirrored laugh? Same melody? It dissolves like sugar on the tongue of yesterday.
Or perhaps I’m destined to travel the cobbled path again, striding into twilight, the echo of my own footsteps growing louder. When you feel you've lived a moment many times before, maybe you’re doing just that. Maybe it’s the universe playing an endless reel, and every so often, you hit pause.