Been there, done that

There’s déjà vu and then there’s the heightened yet subdued version of it.

I was hungry, and there was food—a lot of it but I couldn’t eat. I knew the taste of each dish but I didn’t want to savor it. I walked around in my dirty pajamas and a complimenting pair of slippers, going from one stall to another that offered the usually-tempting delicacies but couldn’t bribe me anymore. A spicy platter was finding it hard to win over a bland porridge.

I saw pretty faces with even better clothes on, and for the first time I didn’t mind the lounging attire that I had put on. No perfume shop could turn me on; no shiny shoes could steal my glance. I was hungry but I couldn’t eat at all.

Suddenly everything—cheap or fancy—was losing its grip on me. The highs and lows were staring at me but the lines defining them were fading away. I could work on and on without needing a break (thinking of a holiday didn’t really make my stomach churn the funny way). I was standing far away from my emotional self, not finding it wrong to feel, for once, the mechanical way.

I saw my future as if in a flashback. Guess I am an old soul, been living too long to now feel old.