The path that came back

An original literary non-fiction-style account of walking a marked labyrinth in a public garden.

The sign called it a labyrinth and explained that there was one continuous path. I had expected a maze. Without wrong turns to choose, I could not see why walking it would take more than a minute. I left my brother on a bench and followed the pale line between the low hedges.

The centre was visible almost at once. I turned towards it, then found that the path curved away. My brother was already taking a photograph. I raised my hand to stop him, but he waved back. Another turn brought me close to the entrance, though I had been walking for some time. I checked the sign from a distance, convinced that I had missed something.

A woman ahead of me moved slowly. I could have stepped across the hedge at its lowest point, but that would have meant admitting to myself that I was not following the route. She stopped to retie a shoelace. I stopped too and watched a small beetle travel along the pale edge of the path. It was making progress in the opposite direction with no apparent concern for the centre.

When I finally reached the middle, there was nothing to collect. No special view appeared, and my brother looked smaller only because he had moved his bench into the shade. I stood for a while before turning back. The woman passed me on a neighbouring curve and nodded. Neither of us offered advice about the route.

My brother asked whether it had been worth doing. I began to say that there had been no puzzle to solve. Then I remembered the shoelace, the beetle and the time I had spent standing still in the middle. I asked him to walk it with me once more, without the camera.

Explain how the narrator's understanding of the walk develops.