2001-07-24 - 11:44 p.m.

Some people call it déjà vu, some people call it something more. I know I'm in the latter category.

It's happened since I was ten. Moments that happen to me that have happened to me before in a dream. Nothing specific, just random times when a dream that seemed to disappear into oblivion from the monotony and sheer simpleness of the dream in a sub-conscious world of deep, twisting plots and rising action jerks back into my memory at the moment that it actually comes true.

And they don't come true in the way that people say "I had a dream that I was going to find a dollar then later I found a dollar," but in the way that I had a dream that I was laying on my bed, trying to nap at 7:34 PM and pretending to be asleep while my roommate Joe, his friends Andy and Ryan, and another friend, Muerl (who, when I had the dream I'd never met in my life) stood in front of me, playing Starcraft (which hadn't come out when I had the dream) on Joe's computer (which he didn't have then) in our room (which wasn't the room we'd been living in when I had the dream), while they talked about how amazing it was that I could sleep through it and a year or so later it happens in exactly that way.

Usually these dreams, until the point that they come true, are completely lost to me. They make no impression on my conscious self until the time comes that one memory seems to become two. Today, however, the dream that came true is one that has, ever-so-subtly, remained as a shadow of a memory since I dreamt it.

This dream came from years ago, at least two, maybe more, and just came true minutes ago. I sat here, in the cafeteria of the Camden National Bank service center, with its white walls and ceilings, blue, white, and green-tiled floor, matching green and blue chairs, and false marble tables with my laptop sitting in its case on the table in front of me as I read "The Virgin Suicides" by Jeffrey Eugenides with an empty can of Arizona Green Tea with ginseng and honey next to my silver watch, Concord Trailways napkin, Austin cheddar cheese on wheat crackers snack—one eaten, one half-eaten, sitting on the package, the rest untouched—and came upon page 113 of the book. And that's when I saw it. Half a page of a story that, when I read it the first time, didn't exist in my mind as something real.

The quote read as follows:

He found Mr. Lisbon alone, in his swivel chair, staring vacantly at the planets hanging above his head. A youthful cowlick sprang from his gray hair. "It's fourth period, Trip," he said wearily. "I don't have you until fifth."

"I'm not here for math today, sir."

"You're not?"

"I'm here to tell you that my intentions toward your daughter are entirely honorable."

Mr. Lisbon's eyebrows rose, but his expression was used up, as though six or seven boys had made the same declaration that very morning.

"And what might those intentions be?"

Trip brought his boots together. "I want to ask Lux to Homecoming."

And there it was. "I want to ask Lux to Homecoming." The quote that made me absolutely certain that this small snippet of a story I'd been trying to identify for years, until now frustrating me while I searched my memory for a story of a girl with a math teacher for a father. One who had to be asked before his daughter could go on a date. The search was an unobtrusive one in my life, popping up in my head at random moments of jumbled memories, and never important enough to care about but always missing. And finally, after years of trying to remember what story I'd read that had this in it, I've realized that the reason I couldn't find it is because in all actuality I hadn't read it yet. Years of trying to remember a single half-page from an obscure story I *knew* I'd read before have finally come together as yet another reminder that something deeper in life is there.

I'm not a religious person, I don't believe in most forms of spirituality, I believe in very little that I can't see or touch or feel in some way, but this… this is real. If anyone were to ever ask me if I believe in ESP, telling the future, all that, I will say, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that yes, I do. As much as I believe that it hurts to stub your toe and I don't like squash, I believe that it is possible to tell the future. Because I've done it. Over and over and over. And the way this fits in is not just because this seems like I may have. I just did it.

Because "I want to ask Lux to Homecoming" is more than just one of the quotes from a story that I kind of remembered. It's the one line in this story that I remembered before I read it.

And that important difference is what makes it all come together.

I remembered it first.