Old Benson, Part Ii

...Utterly stunned, Harvey then poured through the town’s online photographic archives, the twenties, fifties, eighties and today revealed to Harvey the very same sight. Then for some reason that to this day Harvey is at a loss to explain, the teachings of his old physics professor started running quickly though his brain. He’d talked often of an old experiment, the ‘double slit’ were his exact words, he’d said,”Strangely enough, some phenomena only come about when a thing is observed.” And in Harvey’s mind a strange notion came, what if Benson played a similar role? He’d said it was his job to watch over things, the implications of it made Harvey go cold. Was it possible that the crazy old man was the lynchpin everything rested on? Did his watching the world make it all exist, if he stopped, would the whole thing be gone? Harvey didn’t get too much sleep that night, his mind could not stop reexamining the pictures he’d seen, the notion he’d had, the contradictions that just kept burning... So Harvey left home early the next day, thinking that it was he who’d gone nuts, but the idea kept pushing, so he went out, driving to Benson’s spot in his pick-up truck. But when he drew close he saw nobody there, no Benson sitting perched on his stone. He got out of the truck, scanned the whole place, but quickly realized that he was alone. Feeling very confused, Harvey noticed then a scrap of paper left there on the rock, covered in script in an old man’s hand, written hastily out on the spot. It said: ‘Harvey, you’re the first in a while who has ever figure my secret out, I’d try to explain, but given the physics, you wouldn’t know what I’m talking about. Unfortunately, I have got to move on, though I’ve loved this cool spot by the woods, but as I once told you, for a job like this any old place is really just as good.’ Harvey never showed it to anyone, and some days still thinks he’s insane, since after that day nobody else in town could even recall Old Benson’s name. But for all the confusion plaguing his mind he always seems to take solace in this: Old Benson must still be out there somewhere, otherwise how could our world still exist? And deep in Brazil, near the Amazon, a strange tale by the locals is told, of a man dressed in rags, sitting by a tree, smiling at all who pass him on the road.