Owen Clark walked into my office and, after a brief introduction, said, “I’d like you to find my ‘self.’”
“Are you lost?” I replied glibly, waiting for a punch line.
“Exactly. And I think you’re the perfect person to find me.”
I was a trained professional, a private detective with a reputation for handling peculiar client requests.
Clark explained that he was the head of a Hollywood movie studio making a movie about alternate realities. He said that one night he got inside one of the “alternate reality machines” on a sound stage at the studio, and when he stepped out of it he found himself in an alternate reality. This different reality looked pretty much the same as the old one, and he was still Owen Clark, but in this alternate reality he was no longer a Hollywood mogul and no one knew him as the person he used to be.
He sought help from clerics, psychics and psychiatrists, but no one could help him. Desperate and fearing for his own sanity, Owen met a woman who told him about me. Years ago she had brought me a strange case: She wanted me to help her find God.
“I need you to find the self I lost,” pleaded my new client. “The self I have been and wish to be again.”
I understood Owen Clark. It had nothing to do with metaphysics or the bizarre case he had dropped in my lap.
I knew I was lost. But unlike Clark I knew exactly why I was lost.
The main difference between Owen Clark and me was that he still believed he could find his way back.
