Picture by Micah Tindell on Unsplash.

I'd like to thank Malady and Hollis for their help going through this story.
I realize this is an overused title, but it just seemed to fit this story.

October 26th, 2012

Brandon Grey watched as the most beautiful woman in the world walked up the aisle toward him. His heart threatened to skip a beat one moment, then throw in an extra, the next.

For her part, Cammille Smith was radiant. This day was one she had been looking forward to for years. She was twenty-five years old, and she had wondered how this day would be since she started noticing boys.

As the couple said their vows, they both felt like they were dancing on air, and in fact, they appeared to be during the reception. Their first dance, while perhaps not the most skilfully executed, was beautiful due to the expression of love radiating from one to the other.

Cammi was originally from the Yukon Territory in Northern Canada, but she had been just passing through Omaha, Nebraska, on her way to Chicago, when she met Brandon at a gas station.

They’d both been filling their cars, and while it wasn't love at first sight, there was some kind of connection between them. They ended up talking in line getting snacks and then spending time sitting on the hard benches at one of the two tables near the obligatory gas station microwave. What the connection was, neither could say, but they felt as if they had known each other their whole lives.

Cammi was heading to a job interview at an oil conglomerate based in the Windy City. She had been working above the Arctic Circle on an internship, and was about to cement her experience into a full-time position. After meeting Brandon however, the job didn't seem as important as it once had, and she decided to return to Omaha rather than take the position offered.

For his part, Brandon was a meteorologist, and while he gave her his number and hoped he might see the gorgeous Cammi again, he didn't hold out much hope. Thus, it was with great surprise and elation that he answered the phone when Cammi called him a few days later, wanting to have dinner. It wasn’t an expensive meal, but it was relatively private, and they learned so much more about each other.

Brandon had been very independent as a kid. In fact, throughout high school, he had been considered a loner, constantly shying away from other people. After college, however, he started to change. He began to spend more time with the friends he had, and even started to make more.

Cammi was quite different. She had been very outgoing as a kid, making friends wherever she went. As she got older, she went the opposite way that Brandon had, becoming more withdrawn, but never becoming as much of a loner as he had been.

-=#=-

Eventually, the oil conglomerate realized how much they wanted Cammi on their team, but in the two months she had been in Omaha, she had become engaged to Brandon. There was nothing they could say to move her away from him, so they sent work her way, allowing her to work remotely in Omaha. It paid off for both her and the company.

-=#=-

At the wedding ceremony, Gary Brighton, Brandon's best friend and best man, watched the two and was thrilled for them both. He had been friends with Brandon since they were kids, and was happy to see him marry the woman of his dreams.

Gary was a somewhat strange person. He was into just about every conspiracy theory, except the flat earth stuff. He always said, "I know when enough's enough. Aliens at Roswell and Nessie can never really be proved false. You can't prove something doesn't exist. You can only prove it does, but believing in a flat earth is just plain stupid. Put all your chips in that, and you’ll go bust."

After the ceremony, Gary left Omaha. He had kicked around doing nothing for quite some time, but figured he needed to change. He worked hard, got his pilot's license, and eventually became a commercial airline pilot.

It was nearly ten years later that Gary’s path brought him back to Omaha. He had risen through the ranks as a pilot very quickly, and he usually flew abroad, but he wanted to see his mother after quite a long time being away. She had recently been diagnosed with an early onset of Alzheimer’s and he wanted to be there for her.

He requested, and got a flight from Los Angeles to Denver, and then on to Omaha. At Omaha, the flight would be taken over by another pilot, and he would stay on an extended leave.

A couple of days after he arrived, he ran into Cammi in a Trader Joe’s.

“Gary!” Cammi exclaimed when she saw him. She hurried up to him, and embraced him. “How’s your mom doing?”

“It’s really hard to tell,” Gary told her. “One day she seems to be okay, and the next, she seems to be really bad.”

“How long are you here for?”

Obviously, Cammi was in the loop and knew he had taken some time off.

“Well,” he said, “Mom is gonna need someone to stay with her for awhile, so I think I’m gonna be here for awhile. There’s a local run that goes from here to Chicago then St. Louis, then back here, for a parcel service that I’m thinking of taking.”

“Wouldn’t that be a drop in pay?” Cammi asked.

“Yeah, it would, but I need to be here for Mom.”

Cammi nodded, then said, “Looks like you’re getting set up for a nice meal tonight.”

Gary grinned. “Mom’s always loved Corned Beef and Cabbage. I wanna do something nice for her while she can remember it.”

“Why don’t you and her come over to our place tomorrow night?” Cammi said. “I know Brandon will want to see you, and I’d love to see Mama Brighton again.”

Gary smiled. “That sounds like a wonderful idea!”

They chatted for a few more minutes and then went their different ways. Gary headed home and found that his mother was doing pretty well, and they both enjoyed the Irish dish that he made.

-=#=-

The next night, Gary and his mother were seated in Brandon and Cammi’s living room. Mama Brighton was doing well that night, and she talked about some things Gary and “Mutie” had gotten into together when they were kids.

“Mutie?” Cammi asked.

Mama laughed. “It was a childhood nickname. Multifaceted as well. Brandon wanted a better-sounding name than Brandon.”

“Oh! I see,” Cammi exclaimed with a big smile on her face. “Brandon translates to Marlon because of Marlon Brando. Of course, Marlon Perkins was the host of Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Mutie is short for Mutual of Omaha.”

All three of the others simply stared. “H… h… how…?” Gary stammered.

Suddenly, the smile left Cammi’s face, and she looked perplexed. “I don’t know. It just suddenly seemed clear as day, but now it seems far-fetched that I would ever think of that. It’s not my type of humour, but I understand and appreciate it.”

She thought for a moment and then said, “It seems to me that your humor could come up with such a thing,” she said to her husband. “Right?”

“Yes, on both counts. My humor did come up with it, and yeah, that is the way it was decided. I honestly don’t remember telling you the story.”

Cammi laughed uncertainly. “You must have.”

-=#=-

Brandon lay in bed, listening to his wife quietly snoring. It was a bit of familiarity that comforted him at night if he couldn’t sleep. How she had figured out his nickname was a mystery to him. Of course, it wasn’t just Mutual of Omaha. It was also the fact that he’d been such a recluse when he was a kid. He didn’t want to mess with any other kids and was, in essence, mute around them.

He rolled over to look at Cammi. He knew she’d been very social as a child, but that seemed to be changing as she got older. It wasn’t that she was completely changed, but she just didn’t seem to want to spend as much time with other people.

How they both changed seemed to have brought them closer to the way each other seemed to be.

“What are you thinking?” Cammi asked, making Brandon jump a bit as he was startled out of his reverie.

“I thought you were asleep,” he told her.

“I was, but when you rolled over, you woke me up.”

“Sorry,” he told her “I didn’t intend to do that.”

“I didn’t think you did, Mutie.”

He laughed ruefully. “You know, no one's called me that in years.”

She giggled slightly. “Well, don’t you think it’s time someone started again?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think it has the ring to it that it once had.”

-=#=-

The next morning, Brandon was startled awake by a sound emanating from the en suite bathroom. It sounded like Cammi gagging, followed by splashing. He was immediately concerned and sat up, but then his mind went back through recent history.

“When was your last period?” he asked her after she brushed her teeth and made her way to the bed where she sat down on her side.

She pulled out her phone and glanced through her calendar. “Isn’t my calendar shared with you?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he told her. “I just wondered if you missed entering one.”

She flashed him a look like he was crazy.

“Sorry, Cam. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems you’re getting a bit more… flexible, I guess, in regards to entries in your diary and things like that.”

She sighed. “Yes, I s’pose I am, but not about periods.”

He nodded. “Okay. I just wondered when I couldn’t find an entry for last month, that’s all.” He paused in thought for a minute, then asked, “Would you like me to pick up a test kit on the way home?”

She nodded. “May as well, although in light of the missed period, I think it’s pretty certain.”

He stood and made his way to her side of the bed. He bent down and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, then stood up. “I hope so.”

-=#=-

Cammi was showing her pregnancy. She was now in her second trimester, and was extremely happy that the early morning toilet breaks were over.

It was early afternoon, and she had just finished a Zoom meeting. She stood up and leaned back as far as she dared. The baby wasn’t a lot of weight, but it was enough to change her normal stance.

It was funny how such a change could modify her walk, the way she adjusted her stance… even the manner in which she arose from being seated.

It was almost like… She tried to remember, but couldn’t.

She stood with her eyes closed for several moments, trying to place the thought. She knew there was something. Perhaps deja-vu? It was a thought that was there, but completely unconnected with anything else.

She pondered the strange sense for quite some time, but couldn’t resolve it. Finally, she lay down and drifted off to sleep.

-=#=-

Brandon looked at the radar screen before him. It showed a powerful thunderstorm approaching from the south. Glancing around the room he saw different screens showing information from all over the world. Volcanoes. Auroras. Earthquakes. A tsunami was projected to hit the coast of Chile.

Something struck him as familiar. What was it? He tried to place it, but it seemed the more he thought about it, the more elusive it became. What did it mean? How was it familiar?

He put it out of his mind and focused on the forecast he was projecting.

-=#=-

Two days later was Saturday, and Gary came over for dinner. He brought with him a young woman with whom he had made several rounds to Chicago, St Louis, and back to Omaha. Her name was Lucinda, and she was a very competent pilot.

Lucy and Gary spent enough time together to get to know each other quite well, and were taking the next step to that of a personal relationship.

Mama Brighton wasn't present on this night. Instead, she was visiting with her sister, up from Wichita, Kansas.

Over barbecued pork, fries, and okra, Brandon told everyone about the feelings he had Thursday.

"I hate deja-vu," Lucy commented.

"I had a similar situation that day, too," Cammi offered, laughing. "I went to stand up, and found it strange how much just a little bit of weight throws your balance off."

"How's that deja-vu?" Gary asked her.

"It reminded me of something. It was the same feeling I had back when I was an apprentice archaeologist." She stopped talking for a moment as more of the situation came to her from the past.

"I was finishing up working in a dig because there was a thunderstorm coming. It was supposed to be really big. When I stood up, I felt strange."

"Thunderstorm again," Lucy said. "You mentioned thunderstorms too," she pointed out to Brandon.

"Yeah. But I didn't have the feeling of deja-vu until I looked around the room."

"What did you see?" Cammi asked.

"Several things. One of my assistants was working on the effects of all the volcanoes with the climate. There's also supposed to be some Aurora Australius out tonight. Of course, that's only way south, over Antarctica."

"Must be cold down south," Gary commented.

"That's something I'd forgotten!" Cammi exclaimed. "There was an Aurora that night."

Brandon turned to stare at her. “There was in my case too. And a huge amount of lightning. It was one of those nights where it’s kinda reversed. Instead of occasionally lighting up because of lightning, it occasionally went dark when the lightning stopped.”

It was Cammi’s turn to stare. “That’s exactly what happened where I was at. It was really strange there. I know we get storms like that here, but that was completely out of the ordinary where I was.”

“Maybe it was April of 2007,” Brandon said, laughing too. “I was just walking home from a restaurant. It was probably about 9PM.”

“8:45 maybe?” Cammi said. She wasn’t laughing. “April 27th, 2007?”

Brandon stopped laughing. “Could be. Sounds about right.”

“It’s so weird,” Cammi said. “I can see myself walking home from Chili’s in a lightning storm, but then it’s like an explosion of light and I can’t see any more.”

“That’s really weird. It was Chili’s I went to,” Brandon laughed again.

“Maybe your souls touched for a minute,” Gary said, ever the conspiracy theorist.

“What was I doing?” Cammi asked Brandon.

Brandon jokingly struck a meditative pose, closed his eyes and couldn’t keep from sing-songing “Ommmmm.”

Cammi slapped at her husband, laughing, and he opened his eyes. Leaning toward her, he gave her a peck on the lips, then, straightening up, he closed his eyes and seriously started thinking about his wife and that night.

He knew that his wife had been working in an archaeological dig, and he imagined her working in a pit, brushing off a bone.

But it wasn’t a bone. Or was it? Yes, it was. But there was some kind of carving on it.

Suddenly, he wasn’t watching, but working on the dig himself. He carefully brushed the bone off. A word came to his mind. Scrimshaw. He… No, she carefully searched below the bone. It had the typical shape of a handle. Sure enough, there was a slate blade under it. Gingerly brushing it off, she cleaned the soil away from it. It was an ulu. Somehow, Brandon knew the word, although he was certain he’d never heard it before. She lifted the ulu out of the ground and stood.

Suddenly, it was as if there was an explosion. An enormous flash of light that completely obscured the aurora above her.

A moment later, he was in his own body. He picked himself up off the ground and surveyed the area surrounding him. For a moment it seemed strange. He didn’t recognise it, but his memories quickly coalesced into something he knew.

He was in between Chili’s and home. He started to walk, and his vision started to shift. Once more, he was seated on the recliner in his current home, beside Cammi.

Shaking, he opened his eyes and focused on his wife. “That was weird.” He took a deep breath and asked, “Does the word scrimshow mean anything to you, Hon?”

“Not scrimshow, but scrimshaw. It’s carving in bone, usually done by whalers, although I’ve seen several uluit with scrimshaw on the handles.”

“Uluit? Is that plural for ulu?”

“Yeah, it is. In fact, that night, I pulled an ulu out of the ground just before there was an enormous flash in the sky.”

She paused and gave her husband, who was slowly nodding, a surprised look. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t until a moment ago. In fact, I’d never heard either word. Scrimshaw, or Ulu. But as I picked them up, I knew the words.”

“You picked them up?” Gary asked.

“Yeah. Somehow, I was looking through Cammi’s eyes.”

Cammi wasn’t sure what to make of it, but when she saw Brandon on the way home that night, she had seen through his eyes. It was weird!

“Maybe it was a lightning strike. Crossed your memories for a moment,” Gary said, semi-serious.

Brandon gave a snerk. “Or maybe I used to be Cammi, and she used to be me.”

“I saw a really bright explosion when I was seeing through your eyes, too,” Cammi said.

“Seeing through my eyes?” Brandon asked.

“Yeah. I experienced almost the same thing,” she confirmed.

The four talked some more for a little while, then Gary and Lucy left. They were scheduled to fly to Chicago in the morning.

-=#=-

Gary watched the weather radar as they flew over Iowa. It was interesting. Lightning was flashing out of a clear blue sky. It was really weird.

They wouldn’t be in the air for much longer, and he was going to be happy to touch down at O’Hare airport.

Lucy answered the Des Moine air traffic control, and Gary reached forward, telling the autopilot to reduce their altitude. Hopefully they’d be able to go under the electrical storm.

All of a sudden, there was a flash and the aluminum skin on the starboard of their plane glowed from the strike. The plane shook and several sparks flashed in the cockpit.

Gary’s vision faded out for a moment. When it came back, he felt strange. He was on the other side of the cockpit! He looked to his left, and saw his own body shake its head. Then the strangeness started to fade.

Why had she thought she was Gary, Lucy wondered. But then that thought faded, and once more, she was the co-pilot while her boyfriend, Gary Brighton, glanced at her. She told the ATC that they had descended to their new altitude, and the two continued their flight.