The Madman

It was in the garden of a madhouse that I met a youth with a face pale and lovely and full of wonder. And I sat beside him upon the bench, and I said, “Why are you here?”  And he looked at me in astonishment, and he said, “It is an unseemly question, yet I will answer you.

“You ask me how I became a madman. It happened thus: One day, long before many gods were born, I woke from a deep sleep and found all my masks were stolen, the seven masks I have fashioned an worn in seven lives, I ran maskless through the crowded streets shouting, “Thieves, thieves, the cursed thieves.”

Men and women laughed at me and some ran to their houses in fear of me.

And when I reached the market place, a youth standing on a house-top cried, “He is a madman.” I looked up to behold him. For the first time, the sun-kissed my own naked face and my soul was inflamed with love for the sun, and I wanted my masks no more. And as if in a trance I cried, “Blessed, blessed are the thieves who stole my masks,” None of them believed me”. Therefore, I came to this place. I find it more sane here. 

Then of a sudden, he turned to me and he said, “But tell me, were you also driven to this place By not believing you and accusing you of madness?”   And I answered, “No, I am a visitor.”

The End