Alex had been walking down the same path to his home every evening after work, for the last 10 years. He would look around him, at the trees on the side of the road, park benches, the same old houses, neighbours out for an evening walk, and children playing in the park. In one of the empty plots on his way, he used to see a broken down discarded car that had been there for years.
One evening, Alex noticed that the car wasn’t there. ‘Finally someone has removed it’, he thought to himself. Even though the car wasn’t blocking his way or too close to his house, he felt relieved it was gone.
The next evening, on his way home from work, Alex noticed the same car there again, exactly in the same location and same manner as it always was!
Alex was perplexed and asked his neighbours why the car had been returned after being removed the day before. ‘It was never removed,’ one of his neighbours said. ‘You might have missed it,’ he said, before going on to ask a few others around him, but he got the same answer from everyone. ‘The car was never removed from its place’
This completely bewildered Alex and he wondered how he could have missed seeing the car if it hadn’t been removed. He was insanely consumed by this thought!
‘The car wasn’t there; why don’t you believe me? Nobody believes me; you’re all fools!’ In the asylum, Alex kept repeating this to his doctor. He’d been in the asylum for three years now, admitted just a few months after the incident.
Life went on as usual in the neighborhood though. The trees on the side of the road, park benches, the same old houses, people taking a stroll in the evening, children playing in the park and the broken down discarded car in the same empty plot.
Then, after all these years, people in the neighbourhood were relieved when the car was finally removed one fine evening. They had become used to seeing the car there but felt relieved it was gone.
The next evening, the same car was there, exactly where and how it had always been!
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