Reality

Lee walked alongside the sidewalk of an empty road in the town of Harding. He was all alone, which surprised him. Whether they flooded the sidewalks or lined the streets with their cars or somewhere in between, there were always other people here. Always. But there was nothing on the sidewalk but Lee and the snow buffeting his face and tarping the ground.

Because his hat stooped down to his eyes and his scarf was built all the way up to them, he barely noticed the man sitting in the alley just in front of him. Desperate for conversation, he decided to stop and see what the man was up to.

As he moved in closer and closer to the man, and managed to pick up more details about him, he began to regret his decision. The man was sitting in a dilapidated old chair, and was wearing a tattered old leather jacket, a hat with a raccoon tail poking out the back, and a smile consisting of real teeth, artificial teeth, and slots where teeth should have been, all lined up with no specific order or pattern. Next to him sat a box that read: “Lundun Blits releef funs.”

“Would you like to help the cause?” the man said. His scraggly, mangy white and grey beard hid all of his face except for his wiry eyes that didn’t seem to look into Lee’s.

“To donate to help the London Blitz relief?” Lee asked.

“Yes, sir!” the man said, leaning forward in his chair and sending an eerie creak through it that scared Lee into thinking that it could shatter at any moment. “I’m a gover’ment official, y’know.” he said.

“Are you?” Lee asked him, playing along with the man’s silly little game.

“I sure am!” the man said, holding up a sign that read “Membur of guvermint.”

“Well, that’s quite the badge you’ve got there!” Lee told him. “Say, why are you collecting money now when the London Blitz happened before I was born, and likely before you were born, too?”

“Before I was born?” the old man hollered. “Oh, no,” he said, “It was so recent! The War in Cheesetopia was only a year or two ago!”

“The War in Cheesetopia?” Lee repeated, trying hard not to laugh.

“Yes, the War in Cheesetopia!” the old man shouted. “I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it! It was all over the news!”

“And the London Blitz happened during the War in Cheesetopia?” Lee asked, now letting a grin escape.
“Oh, yes!” the old man said. “The Cheesetopians were awful! They came right over to Sweden and dropped all of their bombs on London! I was there, I’ll have you know! The people there desperately need your help!”
Lee took a dollar and put it in the old man’s box, where it sat, all by itself.
“Much obliged, sir,” the old man said. “The people of London will be very appreciative! Death to the Cheesetopians!”
Lee smiled and walked away, allowing himself to enter a fit of roaring laughter as soon as he was sure that the old man couldn’t hear him.
But inside, Lee felt sorry for him. Lee knew that the old man wasn’t trying to con him, he obviously was insane; you can always tell who the crazies are. Lee knew that giving him the dollar was the least that he could do, besides take the time to convince him that Cheesetopia wasn’t real. He knew that the old man would wind up in a real government official’s office, waiting to talk to him about what he had collected for his Cheesetopia fund so far.
As Lee walked by himself through the snow, he realized just how blessed he was that he could retain his sanity. How lucky he was that he didn’t see things like the old man did, and that he saw the world as it truly was; that reality revealed itself to him without the facade that was given to the old man.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
It was that time of day again, and the people on the streets of Harding knew it. As soon as they saw him in his winter coat, his hat and his scarf while everybody else still had a long time to go before they’d shed their summer clothes, as soon as they saw him staring blankly in front of him while everyone else was conversing with a friend, as soon as they saw him, a conversation about him buzzed about the streets.
“That’s Lee,” the people would say to visitors to Harding or perhaps a newcomer or someone who wasn’t familiar with the town gossip. “He’s insane!”
“I feel so sorry for him!” they’d say to each other. “It’s the middle of June and he’s wearing those bulky clothes! He’s probably roasting!”

“He does the same thing every day!” they’d note. “He’ll walk through town and talk to random people about the London Blitz, Cheesetopia, and how empty the streets are! Then he’ll just start laughing maniacally!”

“And those eyes he has!” they’d say. “They’re so strange and wiry, and he never really looks at people with them, does he?”

“You can always tell who the crazies are!” they’d laugh. “Ha ha ha ha!”

Inside, although the people of Harding enjoyed their day to day routine of making a laughing stock out of Lee, they secretly felt incredibly thankful for him. They felt blessed to feel reassured that they weren’t as crazy as he was; not as insane as Crazy Lee. How lucky they were that they didn’t see the same world that Lee did. They were confident and glad that reality didn’t have to present a facade to them like they had to for Lee, that it could show them what was really happening around them.

In fact, they were almost as confident as Lee had been.