OMG! Did I write that?

OK, so I don't write fiction. Well, I do but I'd never be daft enough to put it on display for others to read! Well, other than the odd poem here and there... Never a short story, certainly never a fanfiction... In fact, I've never written a fan fiction! Until today...

Oh, what the hell! In for a penny...

It's Torchwood related, obviously, considering my current obsession! It's probably rubbish but I got it in my head and figured the easiest way to get rid of it was to write it down... So here it is... enjoy! Or Not... Hell, whatever! Jxx

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Like Today Never Happened.

It really was the strangest sensation. It was more than a déjà vu phenomena, it was more like knowing that I’d been here before yet the fact remained that I hadn’t. In my entire memory, I hadn’t set foot in Cardiff before today.

Weeks before we’d been planning the trip. Just a day out. A visit to the Millennium Centre and dock area before hitting the town centre and indulging our shopping passion. We should’ve visited a week or so before but something had happened and we’d delayed the trip. Come to think of it, I can’t even remember what it was that stopped us. Probably too drunk the night before to get out of bed in time? The whole affair seems cloudy now. Like vaguely remembering some antics from the night before, too fuelled by alcohol for true clarity. And the dreams I’d been having… It all seemed so close to fitting together but the pieces didn’t quite slot in comfortably. Oddly familiar faces, dinosaurs, autopsies, aliens, cold storage… All sitting in my nights sleeping brain like all the actual memories I have. I must’ve been watching some really fucked up TV shows recently.

But that was the whole issue… Everything was like “I must’ve done this or maybe I did that.” I couldn’t really remember doing any of the stuff that seemed to plague my subconscious. Snippets of actions and places that I couldn’t quite grasp hold of long enough to make a full thought out of.

But here I was, standing in front of the Millennium Centre, almost knowing that I’d stood here before but being very aware that I hadn’t. It’s an impressive building. Really great architecture. I took a load of photographs, I’ll have to show them to you… And the great big mirrored tower thing just across from the centre. Don’t know what it’s called but it’s great. It’s got a strange feeling to it. When you look at yourself in the reflections it’s almost like it’s mirroring back yourself with a secret. That sounds dumb I know but I really did sense I was looking at myself and seeing someone who was in on a joke but unwilling to share!

Anyway. We had a coffee and sandwich in the centre to start with. The weather wasn’t great and it was nice to just sit inside and shrug away the odd feelings creeping around me. We chatted and drank and ate and eventually agreed to brave the weather again. Stepping outside, it felt cold and wet yet still familiar. I suppose the weather in Wales is always like this. Not that I’d been before as I’d said but I’ve been to Manchester and it always rains there too…

We wandered through the square, outside the centre and down to the waters edge through a small underpass. It was quiet. I kinda expected the area to be busier, bustling even but it had an air of somewhere that people haven’t quite discovered yet. Again that familiar sensation, as if I was in some secret place that I hadn’t shared with any of my friends. Nagging at me like when you know you’ve got to pay a bill or make an appointment to see your GP but never quite get round to it. I know I keep going on about this but it was so strange. And it got weirder.

There’s a small tourist info office tucked away near the waters edge. It’s kinda dilapidated in comparison to the modern feel of the rest of the area. Uninviting. Almost looks closed. I was interested in finding out a bit more about the local area… make sure I wasn’t missing out on anything. The Welsh Assembly is nearby for instance, who knows what else. Well, that’s what a tourist office is for I figured so I tried the door. It was open and we stepped into a cramped, musty run-down space with just a few pamphlets and old unappealing images on the walls of Cardiff’s attractions, nothing modern though. The dark wooden counter was littered, in an oddly untidy yet definitely ordered fashion, with more unimaginative literature. The whole place suggested that there was no desire to welcome folk or invite you to stay more than momentarily but yet, again, I had a jolt of recognition. This time stronger than before. And warmer. This place hit the same senses in my head as those touched when you walk into your office, or a relatives home, or your favourite restaurant. It’s not like the comfort and closeness of being at home but it’s somewhere you feel you should be relaxed and comfortable within, with an edge to it that stops you kicking off your shoes and putting your feet on the table? Something like that.

And then he walked in.

It was just the briefest of moments of eye contact yet it hit me like a bus smashing into my whole body. Not that I’ve been hit by a bus. But this guy, I never caught his name, I don’t think he was wearing a badge or anything but anyway, he stood in front of me and for a moment my whole world stopped dead. I knew him totally and yet, as I said, didn’t even know his name. I’d never even seen him before but felt like I’d known him for years, all my life even? All that from a brief look into his eyes. Yeah, I know, it sounds weird but that’s how it was. People say that when you meet the love of your life you know it instantly. This was like that. Not falling in love but just being very aware that this person in front of you was of huge significance.

I got the most sudden realisation that the random flickers in my head were starting to make more sense in those few moments standing in that dank office. Him there ahead of me, his uninviting demeanour and body language suggesting he’d rather we simply leave but also, his almost projecting of an emotional net, keeping me stood there, rooted to the spot.

I didn’t speak. I stood silent, like some gormless freak, whilst my mate asked a few questions about the docks and the all the developments in the area. Hell, I don’t know what he asked or what he talked about really. I’m just presuming. I was somewhere else entirely. Deep in the heart of a dream as real as the life that surrounds me every day. Seeing things in my head that don’t exist, yet sensing them as real as the physical world around me. I could almost touch and feel the objects in my mind. Weird artefacts and almost alien looking materials and computer screens, swirling patterns, and people, familiar but strangers.

I could certainly feel the remembered pressure of the touch on my skin… Of him…

But it hadn’t happened. I’d not been here before. I’d never met him. I’d never seen this place.

I don’t remember leaving. It seemed hours before I got my head back together but can only have been a few minutes. My mate was going on about how unhelpful some folk were and how we ought to find the main tourist place in the town centre but I was still a million miles away, searching my subconscious for an answer that wasn’t there. As we walked further away from my strange experience, it faded back into the recesses that it had occupied before today. Like today had never really happened. Like everything I remembered from before, that hadn’t really happened.

Like nothing had happened.

Jayson 03/2007