A young boy was studying Zen and went to his master to ask a question about some aspect of enlightenment. He walked into his master’s meditation room and found it filled with bamboo walls.

“Master, where are you?” asked the young boy.

“I am right here in the room,” said the master.

“Why are you trapped?” asked the boy.

“Why do you say I’m trapped?” responded the master.

“Because you are inside some walls,” answered the boy, perplexed.

“How do you know I am inside the walls?” asked the master. “Maybe you are inside the walls, and I am on the outside, and you are the one that is trapped.”

The boy thought for a second, and then he said, slowly, “But I can go outside and walk as far as the eye can see without touching a wall, whereas you are confined into a small area.”

The master answered, “Maybe that just means that you are trapped with the ocean and the lands and everyone else.”

The master did not speak for the rest of the night, and the boy fell asleep by the walls. He was not enlightened.

The master woke the boy, and handed him a heavy backpack full of food and water, and without saying a word they started to hike. They hiked through dense forest, through the high mountains where the air was so rare that it was difficult to breath, and finally into a hot and forbidding desert which they traversed drearily for two and a half days. Finally, the master made a motion, and they stopped. All around them only sand could be seen. The mountains of two days ago were just a memory, no trace of them on the horizon.

“Now, boy,” said the master, “are we trapped?”

“We are not, master,” answered the boy.

“Are there any walls around us?” asked the master.

“There are not, master,” said the boy.

“But would not someone have to hike through the forest to reach us?” said the master.

“Yes, they would,” said the boy.

“And would they not have to climb the forbidding mountains?” continued the master.

“Yes, they would,” said the boy.

“And would they not have to walk through the desert?” continued the master.

“Yes, they would,” said the boy.

“Is a wall not a barrier?” asked the master.

“A wall is a barrier,” affirmed the boy.

“Then is not all this great space between us a wall?” asked the master. “It is even worse, for a wall might have a door, and they might be able to knock upon the door and have the door opened, but where is the door in all of this great space around us?”

“So, then we are trapped together,” asserted the boy.

“Is that so?” said the master. “Then why did you go behind the sand dune to relieve yourself? Even in the middle of nowhere, with no walls anywhere, you make them. Why?”

The boy was not enlightened.

They hiked back, and the boy settled into a much deserved rest. When he awoke the next day, he found that the stables in which he usually slept had been transformed into a maze; all around him were the delicate bamboo walls.

“Find your way to my voice, boy,” said the master.

So the boy tried going towards the voice, but found himself blocked; and then he put his right hand on the wall next to him and walked, always keeping his hand on the wall, for he had read in one of the ancient tracts that this was a way to navigate out of a maze, but that did not work.

“Find your way to my voice, boy,” said the master.

Finally, the boy accidentally stumbled the rough blanket that he used at night, so he unraveled the thread and trailed it behind him, and by not traversing corridors that had a string he managed to navigate more efficiently, until finally he saw daylight and made his way out the maze.

The master was nowhere to be seen, but there was a note that said, “I am trapped.”

With that, the boy was enlightened.

“So, I’ve slain the monster. Can I please be happy now?”

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Why does it have to be so hard? Why did I have to kill this monster, anyways? Couldn’t I have been happy before?”

She took out a flute and started bending it, which made dream-logic at the time. “The goal too easily won is lightly cast away,” she replied.

I rolled my eyes, and replied, “I promise that if I win the lottery I will not throw the winning ticket away.”

She looked at me intently. “Put it this way: before, you wouldn’t have appreciated what you had. Now, when you finally achieve some measure of happiness, you will treasure it.”

She started playing her instrument that was now a trumpet, and I tried to wash my hands and get the blood from under my fingernails, and then I woke up.

“You wanted to save the world, once,” she said.

“I still want to,” I replied, “but I can’t find my car keys.”

“You might want to hurry up with that,” she said. “You’ll be late.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t suppose you want to help me look, do you?”

“No,” she replied, “you have to do that yourself. Anyway, I don’t have a car.”

Then I woke up.

The sun rose at that point, driving her away, leaving me to wonder about her words.

Scene III. A fire burns in the middle of the woods. The full moon can be seen in the background. POLONIUS stands by the fire, warming his hands. FEANE enters, dejectedly.

Hark, comrade!

Hark.

Thou seemst sad and weary of life, Feane;
what botherst thou?

Truly, you have espied my mood
as easily as an eagle spots a rat.
Oh! And my mood is a large dark rat
gnawing at my soul.
(sighs)
I speak without iambic pentameter,
I am so divest of good cheer.

Then sit by this roaring fire,
that doest drive away the chill,
and tell me of your problems.
For if I can help, I will.

I pray then, please explain
the meanderings of women. My heart hurts,
and my head is in pain,
and I understand them not.
They change their minds on the slightest whim;
can go from angel to harpy in an instant.
The truth is a wispish cloud to them,
something that binds them only in passing
as fleeting as a fog.
How can a man make sense of this?

Not all women are as fickle as a whim,
though they are rare indeed.
Forsooth, I have had my own encounters
that have befuddled me greatly
until I doubted my own sanity.
But, it does boil down to this:
one goes receive what one demands.
If you accept a woman mecurial,
you will always have a woman mecurial.

I despair, at times.

Truly, as do we all.
I fear that women are not to be understood
by mortal man, and any man that claims he knows
the fairer sex is, by right,
a charlatan, or a fool. It matters not.
The understanding of women, I think,
is as far and unattainable as the moon.

I think thoust are correct.
(thinks)
But…
(thinks)
the moon is very pretty, is it not?

Aye, the moon is pretty, my friend.
(both men stare at the moon)
(end scene)

That was the last the man ever heard from her, despite his pleading, and he did love her, after all. He was telling someone about this, and said, “I wish that I had a chance to do it all over again.” A passing angel heard his wish…

The room was small, the furniture plain. A man and a woman were arguing, and tempers were flying. The man was so angry that he could barely contain himself. He realized he was living this over, but also realized that anyone that would desert him and never speak to him again over one brief statement made in the heat of emotion was not worth his while, so he said, “I never want to see you again.” With that, the woman grew cold and sad, and said in a small voice, “Your wish is granted.” She spun about on her heel and walked out the door without another word.

That was the last the man ever heard from her, despite his pleading, and he did love her, after all. He was telling someone about this, and said, “I wish that I had another chance to do it all over again.” A passing angel heard his wish, and told him, “You should make the most of second chances. You don’t often get them. Sometimes, you don’t get any chances.”

The man was sad for the rest of his life.