Return to paradise
By Tyler Durden
Chapter One
With Ben
Hitting him simultaneously the joys and pains of travel by railway. A train was 
a quiet space to read your book, enough to keep him contented for a long time 
but there was the physical discomfort of rail travel too. A double-edged sword 
this amusingly small, un-dramatic, normal means of transport. A vague memory of 
an over hot, nearly summer break from school, day in history class. Sometime in 
the 1800's they believed it was dangerous to go at the thirty mile an hour speed 
that a train went back then. For fear of looking strange he banished his 
amusement. Strange sense of humour but then what was strange anyway? What was 
normal? Normal was surely just some intangible, vague idea about being somehow 
similarly to others as if just being a human wasn't enough. That would make 
strange an even more unimportant factor in...just about anything. A lessening of 
the clatter of the train's wheels indicated its proximity to the station. Not 
just a station but also a place, someone's home. A flood of memories with every 
move you made. A way to reach through the wall that separated past and present 
and bring them together just for your mind's own amusement without you actually 
wanting it or being able to control it first. Whether you wanted it or not and 
your mind could do this instantly and without command. What a wonderful, complex 
thing a person's mind was to be able so to do something like recall the past so 
quickly when several million years of human ingenuity was incapable of doing the 
same thing at all. Something like memories he knew a machine would never 
produce, no matter how advanced the centaury. People who thought time travel was 
impossible or at least a goal that would only be achieved in that vague, place 
that was always hovering out of view, the future, were wrong. He knew time 
travel was already here. You did it each time you remembered a part of your past 
until then kept under lock and key. The train pulled up to the compression 
chamber of that flood of memories, that home. There reality hit his hart but not 
with a dagger. Something soft yet blunt. Not painful but still sharp. Through 
the train window that teenage Pokemon breeder friend of the man on the train 
that he was expecting had disappeared to be replaced by a man with vague 
features of the breeder expected but with unrecognisable ones too. The large, 
tall frame was there, those remembered eyes, the hair colour of the breeder 
present but the hair was no longer spiky, the face thinner, slightly more lined. 
A marriage of the familiar and yet different but behind these atmospheric 
differences the original breeder's essence still remained. He was still the same 
soul in any shape. The man grabbed his luggage. A piece of his existence in a 
new and therefore separate part of his life that hadn't been with him long 
enough to become part of him: his new suitcase. He joined the breeder/not 
breeder.
"Brock" the man said embracing him in part friendliness and in part socially 
expected gesture.
"Ben" Brock said to the man.
Ben looked at his friend and his mind did its uncalled for instant thoughts 
trick again. Not a memory this time but a question about memory. Did he really 
know Brock as he was now? Did time alter a person? Ben knew a memory that was 
once called Brock but did his version of Brock alter with ever moment and 
therefore every new thought and decision to become the current Brock that stood 
before him? What made up a person? Was it just memories and decision that were 
made? Paths that were chosen and others that were discarded?
"Let me carry that. I insist" Brock said in reference to the suitcase. Ben 
willingly gave over this weight that he must carry shackled to him to let it 
become another's burden. His only practice at light packing was when he started 
his Pokemon journey and he was no good then and as the way to do it was just a 
fading memory worse now. The suitcase was heavy but Brock's large limbs would 
have no problem with it. It was a very small favour to ask of a friend so Ben 
minded it little. Ben pushed the alterations that time had made to his friend's 
appearance from his mind and reached behind that mental block to find a device 
of small talk to use. Brock beat him to it.
"How was the journey?
"Give me a book and some silence to concentrate and I'm happy."
"Really? I personally find train journeys exceedingly dull."
Ben surveyed the anti-Pallet Town that had, it seemed to him, just appeared 
without warning. The town so now filled with the lives, not just humans but also 
the experiences that make up a human, that it could no longer be the almost 
empty Pallet town he remembered. So filled with large, grand buildings. So 
filled with noise. Certainly not Pallet town and yet still with the spirit of 
Pallet Town akin to the spirit of Brock that made this man who walked beside him 
Brock. Again the same factor, long amounts of time spent away, making physical 
evidence of the past turn into the less tangible state of memories half hidden 
in the attic of the human mind but brought back in excessive amounts by one 
single trigger memory. The dominos of the mind. One being knocked over starts a 
chain reaction to sets all others off. Ben sought to turn this place and this 
Brock into the familiar town and Brock using mediocre questions.
"How is everyone?"
"Are you doing well in the Pokemon breeding business?"
"Has Ash come back yet?"
"What happened to this place?"
Brock answered the first four questions with, in condensed text, the replies 
they're doing fine, the Pokemon breeding business is doing excellently and I'd 
recommend it to anyone, and no. The last answer, given in full this time, gave a 
wonderful yellow light to Ben's heart to keep near it. It was the light of 
pride.
"Well once true Pokemon Masters like you started coming from here this town's 
started to fill up with people. I think people realised good Trainers come from 
small towns sometimes as well as big ones. Everyone wants to start their Pokemon 
Journeys here whether they were born here or not and they took the usual people 
with them. You know, reporters, businessmen. It's a Pokemon Breeder's paradise. 
With you and Ash and Misty and Gary and Professor. Oak here this town's just 
gonna keep on grow'en. Your famous believe it or not."
A disappointment despite the apparent testimony of celebrities that Ben often 
failed to believe about the annoyance of reporters never leaving you alone. Ben 
wanted his own crowd to follow him but the flavour of the month, Ash Ketchum, 
had stretched to become flavour of the last ten years give or take and there was 
apparently little media attention left for anything else to spread around. No 
reporters for Ben. Still the knowledge of being the best of a rare breed but was 
that enough to give Ben glory? Enough to satisfy his ego? How much attention and 
personal triumph was enough to sustain a man's self esteem to its extremity for 
his lifetime? That begged the question: how much was too much? Maybe the answers 
were one in the same. Another double-edged sword. Ben was discovering many of 
them recently. A hard to say statement coming from Brock now. His body language 
was proof of that.
"After Ash, well left, I'd like to say run out on us but...well it's been so 
long now I'm not sure how fair it is. After he left...Misty decided to leave 
too. Leave the town, her bad memories. I don't know where she is but I doubt 
she's coming back. I wrote to you about it."
"I remember."
Brock's body language betrayed his pleasure at being able to move to another 
subject as he asked what Ben intended to do now. Uncertain as to the answer 
himself Ben's reply was understandably vague. He could live on the money he'd 
won through winning countless battles and he was very pleased to be able to say 
to himself and especially others that he was wealthy but he knew he'd be quickly 
bored. He would have to come up with a plan sooner rather than latter. He knew 
he'd get plenty of offers from his old friends here. Brock explained that such 
creatures as these "Old friends" were ready to start a welcome home celebration 
when they got to Ben's childhood and soon to be temporary adulthood, home. So 
they hurried on.