240 billion neurons bound together through the hidden portals of connectors that meander from mind to mind.  Each appropriately recognizes what another does.  The fires glaze through invisible circuits, exiting one and entering another.  Yet they are one across the universes.

     He never walks this chamber.  He had to today as his livelihood depends on the meeting ahead.  A fleck of recognition startles him in this corridor where he has arrived. "I have been here before," he says.  "This is déjà vu."

     "I walked that hallway.  I entered that room.  I saw what was inside." He adds, "But I have not."

     The rendezvous is elsewhere though, distracted, he goes forward.  He must proceed and cannot waiver.  Cautiously, he offers a deliberate, hesitant grasp of the golden doorknob, which reflects the flickering of the fluorescent light above.  Behind this door is the sound that has awakened him from his thoughts in previous encounters.  It echoes and dances along the asymmetrical wooden paneling of the corridor.  It is a shot.  He knows he will go on because he always has.

     The door yawns open.  The shadowed room denies the opulence of the decorated interior he knows is there.  He finds, fondles, and fumbles with the switch and the room is awakened with light.  Blind, initially, then recuperating.  This should be the end, he fears.  The transcendent climax always manifests itself here.  He winces because he knows.  240 billion neurons say it is so.  It must be so.

     He flinches as the silence permeates his eardrums.  His hands grasp his chest, his abdomen, albeit randomly. No holes pierce his outerwear.  No blood spurts from his skin.  He remains one, at least physically.

     Relax.  Breathe.  He contemplates the deafening silence.  He is at ease and steps forward to raze the demons from the portals of his mind.  The rendezvous shall continue unabated. Becalmed and relieved he finds himself.

This is short-lived.

He sees himself.  It is not a mirror.  It should have been expected.  It was not.  A sudden surprise is not unlike the now elusive shot.  His brain vibrates with the ensuing echo that fades, crash by crash by crash.  Becalmed no more.

     "Who are you?" he asks

     "Who are you?" his exact opposite responds.

     "Why are you here?"

     "Why are you here?"   

     His deja vu is not as it seems.  There are subtle similarities between a vision and a shot.  Both embrace the element of surprise. Does his opposite think the same?

     He knows this has happened once.  Maybe not here but elsewhere.  The minds exchange greetings or so he thinks.  "There cannot be more of me," he cries.  Yet there are and will be across the masses.

     The room is silent and bright.  A door separates them but they will always interact like 240 billion neurons, each with its own path and running parallel, though they form a single soul.  A troubled single soul now cries, "Let us be one."

     And so they shall.   They close their eyes.  He shuts the door.  He walks away.  He continues on his own path, with only a moment gone.

The End