The Way Home
Copyright© 2013 by BarBar
Chapter 9
Benito puts his hands around me. Helps me to sit.
I hold my head in my hands.
He waits, patiently, while I compose myself.
Finally, I’m ready.
I look up.
“Benito?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to the park?”
“Nothing happened to the park. Memorial Park is still where it has always been.”
“Where am I?”
“What do you see?”
“I see a room with wood-panelled walls. There are books, lots of books. I see drawings on the walls ... some are children’s drawings, some are more refined. I see you and me sitting on a leather couch. I see a desk in the corner with a computer and some photos in frames. I can’t see the photos from here.”
“That’s good. That’s what I see, too.”
“I thought you were blind.”
“That was your idea, not mine. The mind is an amazing thing. It fills in the blanks. It creates fictions to cover gaps in the reality that it sees. I couldn’t see what you could see, so your subconscious decided that I must be blind. It was a perfectly logical deduction, but based on a flawed premise.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You were lost. You’ve been stuck for a very long time. You were only seeing what your mind would allow you to see. You were living that one Thursday afternoon, over and over again – stuck in one endless loop of time. It was time for you get unstuck.”
“You were helping me?”
“That’s what I do. I help people who are lost. It’s something I’m good at.”
“You’re a doctor?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m a father. Sometimes I’m a son. Sometimes I’m an amateur sketch artist. My life is very varied. But today I’m a doctor. And today you’re my patient. And together we’re going to get you well enough to leave here.”
“Is this a hospital?”