The 90's Kid

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Raris was sure he had never owned an Atari 2600 video game system with a 8-bit processor.

  He was sure he had never complained overly on the sudden rise in VHS prices and how hard it was to continue to buy betamax because the end of the format war. 

  He was sure he had never had 26 days till his mid-term, which he was counting down to because his grade would be the basis on to whether he would stay at university or just drop out and play video games in Carl’s basement with the cool bean bag chair that seemed to fit him and only him perfectly, screw Evan who constantly said otherwise--

  Raris splashed his face and made his night clothes sopping wet with the sink water a third time, not even caring as it got into his mouth. He gasped then choked, wondering if he could drown his thoughts. 

   He then stared at himself through the mirror, the shadowed and wet grimace only illuminated by the constantly flashing christmas lights fluttering their light through the door of the bathroom. It was late January, yet, as a 15 year old boy, Raris found no reason to take them down from his room just yet. The flashing colors reminded him of some a comfort he had not remembrance of, or maybe he did, it was his older sisters favorite oversized sweater with the rainbow lights, or maybe the time his mother was on the roof, trying to get an illegal firecracker his friends set off of the rafters…
 
 Raris questioned, rather hysterically, why he did not just drown himself as a means to get these thoughts out of his head. Raris had no sister. No illegal firecrackers. He was born more than 30 years after the 70’s, the only time he could think betamax was relevant.  

   “Hey, can we please throw this betamax player out? The 70’s are over mom!”

  “Your father doesn’t seem to think so.”

  “Dad, Dad, Dad. It’s all about that self righteous scumbag--"

  “Cavis!”

The vision, memory, whatever the affliction in his brain was, it made him stagger back from the vanity as it played in his mind rather suddenly. He wished to laugh, but that would truly show his descent into insanity, would it? Falling out bed because of memories-- no-- a nightmare of arcade cheats and dial-up internet and waiting in anticipation for Return of the Jedi.

    Cavis Wishaw (don’t ask Raris where he got the last name from)  was not a real person. He found it necessary to remind himself. He was not Cavis, a bum-esque 22 year old. He was Raris Tanes, a short  highschool sophmore who had never even touched, nor had interest in video games besides the occasional day in his early childhood when someone in his class invited him over to play on their Wii.  

  Yet, ever since he woke up at 4 am on Saturday, images he never seen before but somehow understand the context of vividly have been flashing through his head. He had a constant headache. He has no perception of time. What year was it again? It might be 1990, and his aunt had finally caved in and gotten a computer-- no, it was the late 2010’s, and his mother would be waking him up anytime soon to go to school, either the mother with the hoop earrings and oversized jeans and a hatred for odd new cell phone craze or the one with the new iphone which glitched out on her anytime the screen touched her newly manicured nails…

 Cav-- Raris screamed. He decidedly screamed into his own stagnant reflection. 

  “Raris! What the heck you doing in there boy!”

  “Boy! What do you think you’re doing? Sneaking off with some fa--!”

  “At least he can actually speak to me like a person, Dad!”

 “You’re barely a person, playing that Game-Boy like a robot all day!"

   “If you don’t like it, I can get out!”
  “Then leave, dammit!”

 Words and images and thoughts flashed even faster, festering and building up in whirlwind. Picture-esque commercial family dinner, with the aluminum sticking to the salsbury steak. The ecstatic, bubbling feeling as he placed Kevin’s first mixtape into his walkman. Laughing with his dad, for the first time in forever, about one Seinfeld joke.

  Suddenly, or maybe it had been the accumulation of years or eons, maybe days or months, a split second or an eternity of wandering in fog; but suddenly, Raris was not really Raris anymore. 

  Cavis screamed again, or maybe for the first time. 

 “I swear on your life Raris, if you make me come in there--!”

  “Sorry!” Cavis said absent-mindedly, staring wide eyed at a reflection that was not his own. The faucet was running, albeit drowsily, its hiss somehow bringing Cavis into awareness. He gasped, then sighed, trying with all his might to not let bile into his throat or panic invade his mind. Cavis had only a faint understanding of who and where he was. 

  The last actual memory he had was a day in March, 1994, where he walked outside to clear his dorm of the perpetual pizza boxes and junk and place it in the dumpster. He had an argument with his dorm-mate Tyler, before screaming frustratedly and walking out with the stack of junk. He could not recollect what the argument was about, only that  he was too mad to care for the screaming that came from behind him in the dark of the night, somewhere unperceivable past the tight corners of the building’s alleyway. He stubbed his toe on the communal dumpster, wondering faintly but not caring in the slightest about the escalating violence behind him. Probably another frat party. Then he heard a click. Something shattered. A broken gasp, a bang, and then--

 “Holy shit. Did I die?”

 The voice that came out of his mouth had a higher pitch and all of the wrong inflections. Cavis brought his hands up to his face. They were a light caramel, not the pale peach his mom complained needed more sunlight. They matched the unfamiliar face in the mirror, the very oddly styled brown mop of hair on his head, the tinge of memories that evaded him. Cavis gazed down at nothing and everything in panic, regretting every little aspect of his life, yet not remembering a single thing to regret. 

  His door opened. 

  “Hey Rare, mom said to come check on you, make sure your ain’t having an aneurysm or something.” A tall man with a bulky build walked in, hand still on the bathroom door. If Cavis looked up he would see a smile, detailed poorly in the lighting, grace his face. Cavis never looked up. The smile turned into a frown.

  “Rare, you hearing me? Are you okay?” Feet padded closer the Cavis, but before whomever could come closer, they heard murmuring. 

  “No, no, no, no, no, no…” Cavis repeated his mantra of disbelief. There was no doubt in his mind. He had died, and like some alien probe, he quite suddenly  invaded the body of someone else. He would never see Tyler again, or Kevin, Carl, Evan, his dad, his mom, his sister--

  “...Raris, Raris! God, talk to me buddy. You okay?” He hadn’t felt the hand on his shoulder until the pressure became tight. The felt sweater underneath the hand scratched his shoulder in such an irritating way, making Cavis turn his head around to the worried face he saw gazing down at him. Cavis said the only thing he could really say in that moment, staring at a face he knew this body should remember, one which reminded him of his own sister and how terrified she would be to find her brother had briskly been wiped away from the world without a trace. He stared straight into the man’s eyes, and said:

  “I’m not Raris.”