Mind / Sidewalk

An elderly, noncomprehending woman waddles along the sidewalk and runs into a little bastard Philosophy major who thinks the world doesn't exist, that all the universe could be nothing more than a dream in his head or a twinkle in someone's eye.  He walks in defiance of eternity, feeling at once like the meaninglessness of life yields endless recreational possibility, yet no at the same time no chance for real, true fulfillment in anything.  His knowledge and intense philosophical probing have brought him to perpetual existential crisis, yet he considers himself enlightened and above the lower, less meditative people in this world.

The woman is at least eighty years old, and cannot remember how to get to her house.  She walks around in circles, with no way of knowing that the scenery she passes is the same scenery she's passed seven times.  With the best of intentions -- to return to her house and prepare a meal for her bedridden husband -- she is stuck in eternity.

She asks the young man, "Can you tell me how to get to 2846 Stonybrook?"
The young man replies, "You're standing right in front of it."
The woman looks up, and sees her house there for the first time.  "Oh, thank you son.  My mind just isn't what it used to be."

The young man looks into her nearly blind, uncomprehending eyes and wonders about whatever she claims her mind "used to be;" purportedly, Albert Einstein, undeniably one of the most brilliant men of all time, so bound up in his studies of physics and relativity, would often neglect to remember things like where his house was.  The young man doubts, however, that this woman has borne any contribution half as significant as the late scientist.  But still, just like Einstein, here is a human being whom two people at one time came together to create.  The same arousal, the same sexual intercourse, the same egg fertilization; this woman, coming into the world and leaving the world, just the same way as everyone else. 

"Are you sure this is your house?" the young man asks. 
"Well, it's been my house for twenty-seven years!"
"Alright.  But  ma'am, this isn't then; this is now.  Are you certain, ma'am, that at this time, this is your house?"
"Well, I certainly think so!"
"But what makes you so sure?"
"Because I've lived here for twenty-seven years!"
"But this is the present, ma'am.  This isn't the past.  You could have moved, had amnesia, and forgotten all about it; who's to say you didn't?"
"I don't have time for this," the old woman said.

She waddles up the driveway toward her home, pulls a key out of her pocket, sticks it in the doorknob, turns her wrist, and sure enough the door opens.  She walks inside.   

The young man stands still on the sidewalk, believing she could have just as easily entered into another house and no change would have occurred in anything.  Before she said anything, in his mind, any house could have been her house.  And in his mind was everything.  The young man could have just as easily heard that her house was 2742 Stonybrook, or that it was in a cave just beneath 2749 Stonybrook, just the same as he heard 2846 Stonybrook; without knowing, anything could have ended up true and it would have seemed, no matter how comparatively ridiculous or absurd when looking at other (perhaps nonexistent) possible occurrences, as though it was always bound to be so.

The young man walks away, his head completely steeped in profound meaninglessness, for better or worse.