"What?" Fred asked. He'd been over at the sideboard mixing drinks for the gang while I'd taken Joe over the bumps. Now he brought the tray over and shoved a tall one into Joe's hand. "Don't cry, Joe. What's the damnedest thing, Jerry?"
"You know ... that funny feeling that you've been some place before—the same place, the same people, saying the same things—but you can't remember where the hell or when, for the life of you. Had it just a moment ago, when I told Joe he owed me fifteen bucks. What do they call it again?"
"Déjà vu," said Allen, who's sort of the scholarly type. "Means 'seen before' in French, I think. Or something like that."
"That's right," I said. "Déjà vu ... it's the damnedest funniest feeling. I guess people have it all the time, don't they?"
"Yes," Allen said.
Then he paused. "People do."
"Wonder what causes it?"
Joe's blue eyes were twinkling. "Dunno. The psychologists have an explanation for it, but it's probably wrong."
"Wrong why?" Knowing Joe, I expected a gag. I got it.
"Well," Joe said. "Let me make up a theory. H'm ... hoo, hah ... well, it's like this: there are monsters all around us, see, but we don't know they're monsters except that every once in a while one of them slips up in his disguise and shows himself for what he really is. But this doesn't bother our monsters. They simply reach into our minds and twiddle around and—zoop!—you're right back where you were before the slip was—"