There was a man who spent his life drawing maps. Not the kind that led to treasure, but the kind that told you where you already were. He sketched cracked sidewalks, old diner booths, backroad motels with flickering neon signs. If you’d been somewhere, he could draw it like he had lived there himself. People came from miles away, handing him stories, memories, forgotten corners of their lives. He’d nod, listening, then put pen to paper.
One day, a traveler sat across from him. Her clothes smelled like rain. “Draw me a map home,” she said.
He sharpened his pencil. “Where’s home?”
She looked past him, out the window, where the sky was bruised with twilight. “That’s the problem. I don’t know anymore.”
For the first time, the man hesitated. He had drawn alleys and gas stations, churches and bars, but never a place someone couldn’t name. So he asked, “Where was the last place you felt real?”
The woman smiled. “Right here.”
So he drew. He sketched the chair she was sitting in, the dusty road outside, the cracked leather of his own notebook. He drew the moment itself—the hush between words, the way her fingers tapped the table, the weight of something unspoken.
When he handed it to her, she laughed. “But this is just—now.”
He nodded. “Then maybe that’s where you start.”
She folded the paper carefully, tucking it into her coat. “Guess I better get going.”
“Guess so,” he said.
And when she walked out the door, she didn’t look lost anymore.