by Allen Teal

I've never been much of one to buy into the idea of a past life or extrasensory perception. Moments of deja vu have always been written off as a quirk of memory. This was a day when change was in the air. I had just finished my usual breakfast of bacon and eggs with a side of grits.

The day was off to a flying start, and I was ready for work. I walked out of the restaurant, and for just a second, it seemed too familiar.

The cars on the street and sounds in the air were more than vaguely similar to something I had experience before.

Setting it aside as a coincidence, I ambled down the sidewalk to the car dealership where I sold used cars. A green Chevy was pulling onto the lot with a rather strange looking driver. I stopped to watch the scene unfold as he stepped from his car and walked angrily toward the building. I knew that car. It had been on the lot for months and no one could believe when it sold. The car had a bad color, didn't run to well, and was needing some body work.

As I neared the office, I could hear screaming and shouting coming from within. The glass and brick muffled the sound enough that I couldn't make out the words. Another unhappy customer was venting on the owner or his salesperson. Choosing not to go inside right now, I lurked in a shadow just down the sidewalk.

The door flew open and the customer ran to the car. I heard his tires squealing as he left the lot and entered the street. Stepping inside, I wasn't ready for the scene that awaited me. People were crying and sobbing but no one seemed hurt. The owner was pacing the floor saying something about how he should never have sold that car.

Stopping him, I asked what was going on. He looked at me and told me a story about a car that his father had owned. It was an old green beat up Chevy. He had inherited it when his father had died. Since it wasn't much of a car, he put on the lot to sell it. His father had told him a story when he was younger about selling that car once.

It had cursed the people who bought as one by one their family had died. He had told the man about the story before he bought the car. A few minutes earlier, the man came in to tell him that his family was gone. One by one, strange happenings had taken their lives. He came back to try to sell the car back to the dealer. The dealer's young son was standing by and told his dad to buy it back.

The owner had a flashback of standing by his father saying the same thing 15 years earlier. Shaking the owner told the man that he was sorry, but the cycle stopped here and asked him to leave his shop.