Only fools run²⁵

Finally I saw an old man walking. I asked him if this was the right way to get to Manhattan. I had gone astray, but he brought me back to the right path. We became friends.

Then he became very undivine and started criticising everything. He felt the world was very bad, everything was very bad. He was not interested in anything. He was very happy to see that I was walking, because he hated running.

The man said to me, “Only insane people walk in the street. Always walk inside the park where there are very few people.”

At one point he said to me, “Are you injured?”

I said, “Yes.”

He asked, “How?”

I said, “From running.”

He said, “So now you are wise. You are walking.”

He did not want me to run anymore. He said, “Only fools run. You and I are wise.”

I smiled at him, and just then we saw a young man with a headband, running very fast. When he ran by me, he said, “Hi, Sri! You are here!”

The man said to me, “Your name is Sri?”

I said, “Yes, my name is Sri.”

He said, “Who is he?”

I said, “I don’t know.”

Look at this! Only a minute earlier, the old man had said that only fools run. Then a runner came to greet me.