I Was In My Garden

Sitting in my study, I was looking over writings by an author who shares my name. A stack of books sat on the desk, the titles on their worn spines illuminated by the desk light. Some were novels, others discussions of philosophy, others political discussions, others compilations of shorter works.
I wondered how this one author had managed to write all these things. I wondered how he thought of all the ideas contained in those pages. I wondered what the author might be like. What would it be like to meet the mind that wrote all this?
Would he be as wise as his books made him sound, or would the meeting be a disappointment? Would he live by what he taught, or would he be a hypocrite? Would I feel like I'm in the presence of a great man when I shake his hand, or would he seem like just another average person? I wondered what he'd be like now, as opposed to how he was then.
I couldn't remember. I hoped to meet the author again someday, but it seemed as if he'd been forever lost in my past. It seemed as if I'd never be able to write these things again. Never be able to comprehend such ideas again.
I closed a novel that I'd written three years ago, and I pushed it to the corner of the desk. Sitting back in my chair, I folded my arms and closed my eyes. Where have you gone? I wondered. Where have you gone?
Where have I gone really.
Yes. Where have I gone?
No, where have you gone. You're not who you were.
Not who I was, no. I am somebody new now. I am searching for a bit of me, but having lost it, it is not in me... no, it is in me... but it's not in the part of me where I am. I am searching for you in me. Where in me have you gone?
Yes, that's right.
Introspection, introspection. If only I could unfold my mind and lay it out like a roll of turf. I could walk through the grass of my thoughts, then kneel down and inspect it closer, searching for you in it.
Looking closer at the turf reveals that there is more growing in it than grass alone. It is a whole garden.
So I walk along the edge of it, looking down the rows of plants, trying to find you.
The rows seem to stretch on forever. It seems almost impossible to find anyone in this infinite landscape, but no, there's someone. There is someone down that row.
I begin to walk down between the two rows of plants, toward the person.
He knows you're coming for him. He slides through the brush into the next row and into obscurity.
I brush past the plants as I move to follow him.
There he is, just beginning to break out into a run.
I run too, chasing him. I run. I run. I'm catching up.
Is he growing weary, or is he letting you catch up?
He's growing weary.
I'm letting you catch up.
What?
I am. I am him. We are face to face now. You caught me. I let you.
You?
Yes, me.
You are me.
No, I am me, and you are you. We are both a part of this garden, but we are not part of each other.
But this garden is my mind.
So you are the keeper of the garden?
Yes... I guess I am.
That does not mean you are the garden.
No... I suppose not... Who are you?
I am who you were looking for.
You were the author?
Yes, I was.
I need your help.
With what?
I need you to write me another book.
No you don't.
What? Yes I do. My publisher is demanding that I write another by the end of the year. If I don't, I'm going to be out of a job.
I mean you don't need me to write it, the garden does.
Oh. O.K., fine, the garden needs it, but I'm the keeper of the garden, so I need it for the garden.
He is the keeper of the garden.
Who?
Over there.
Where?
Do you really want to know? Aren't things confusing enough with just the two of us?
I suppose so... Tell me about him.
He is the keeper of the garden.
Aren't I?
Yes.
So we're both keepers?
Give me your head.
Aren't we already in it?
No, not our head, your head.
Our head is mine, and his apparently too, because we are the keepers.
True. You're learning. Now give me your head.
Whoa! This feels so strange... Who am I? What is this place? Is this me? No, the other garden was me, what's this one.
This one is you.
You're still here?
No, this is my first time here. Before I was there.
Where's there as opposed to here?
Here is the garden in your mind. Your mind is in our mind, which belongs to you, because you are the keeper. There was our mind, in which your mind is. That's where we are.
So is my mind our mind or my mind?
Which one of your minds?
This one.
This one we're in, or this one that the one we're in is in? Which do you mean?
Erm... I'm not certain what I mean... I don't know who I am to know my meaning.
Then look around. Inspect the garden. I noticed you didn't do so earlier, because you were to busy looking for me. You ran through our mind, which belongs to you and the other, without even looking around. Do you know how much you missed?
I... I can't remember. Was that me that ran through that garden? I don't remember what I missed, because I can't remember who ran through the garden.
Your garden ran through our garden. Inspect the garden you are in now, and perhaps you will learn what it missed when it ran through our garden, though it will be difficult. It would have been a lot easier if the garden had paid attention for itself rather than leaving you to search through it for the thing it saw but ignored.
Whoa, this is a beautiful garden. I've never seen plants like this before. Look here at this plant's eyes... they shine yellow, like a cat's eyes. I think one just blinked! Did you see that? Did you? Wait... where did you go? Where did you go? Hello? Hello?
It was when I heard my own voice echoing off the wall, asking "Hello," that I remembered there was a wall. Four of them in fact. I opened my eyes and looked around the small study. I looked at the books stacked up on my desk. The books by an author I'd recently had the opportunity of meeting.
I smiled, then took out some paper and a pen.