After some time, when both were end of talking, another talk started... The sage smiled softly, his wrinkled face glowing in the afternoon light. "See, little boy," he began, his tone calm but thoughtful, "I am telling you from my experience, life is just like a book."
The boy tilted his head. "A book?"
"Yes," the sage said. "Have you ever seen a book?"
The boy nodded eagerly. "Of course."
The sage's smile deepened. "Then think of this: in a book, you already know about the pages you've turned - the past. But what about the page you are reading now? Or the one that comes next, still closed beneath your fingers? Do you know what's written there?"
The boy shook his head. "No."
"Exactly," the sage said. "That's how life is. You can only read one page at a time. Some people waste their lives re-reading old pages, crying over what was written. Some others try to peek ahead, to see what's coming, but that only spoils the story. The wise ones, though… they read the page in front of them carefully. They live in it."
The boy's eyes lit up in sudden realization. "So you're telling me to enjoy the moment I'm living in, not to worry about what's next."
The sage chuckled, stroking his long beard. "You're half right, and for your age, that's already quite something. I met the most intellectual ones by sitting here, full of books and pride, and they took years to understand what you just said in one breath. Ahh…" He sighed and smiled again. "Why am I not angry talking with a little boy like you? Maybe because the questions of a child are purer than the answers of a grown man."
The boy grinned shyly but said nothing.
"Listen," the sage continued, his tone soft but firm, "in life, whatever you receive, be it love, food, kindness, or even pain, you must learn to be content with it. The more you crave, the more your mind becomes tangled like roots in dark soil. The more you try to grab, the heavier your hands become. And soon, you'll find that the things you wanted so badly are the very things that make you bow, that make you a slave to your own desires."
The boy frowned slightly, trying to grasp it. "So you mean… if I want less, I'll live more?"
The sage smiled. "Something like that. Want less, and you'll see more. When your hands are empty, you can finally hold the world." Both of them are stared at each other opposite direction. But after sometime, suddenly boy's eyes flickered toward the sage's robe. "why you wear those clothes? The orange ones?"
The sage looked down at his own garment, the fabric faded and simple, moving like a quiet flame in the wind. He paused for a long moment before answering with a smile on his dried face. "Do you know what this cloth means?"
The boy shook his head. "No."
The sage smiled gently. "We who wear this, people call us sages. These robes are not for pride, nor for power. They are a reminder, to renounce everything that blinds the soul. We left behind our homes, our attachments, our anger, our name, even our hunger for love. We are trying to find the truth that hides beneath the noise of life."
He looked into the distance, eyes far away. "We control our senses because each sense is a doorway to illusion. We speak very little because every word we utter must be truth, and truth, my boy, often hurts. So we keep our mouths closed and let silence speak. that is why I told you very less."
The boy looked at him with quiet awe. "It must be hard."
"It is," the sage admitted, a small laugh escaping his lips. "But peace isn't found in comfort. It's found in clarity. You'll understand one day."
The boy hesitated, then asked softly, "So… everyone who wears those clothes can be a sage?"
For the first time, the old man's smile faltered. A shadow crossed his eyes. He didn't answer right away. The silence that followed was heavy, full of unspoken meaning. Then, slowly, he spoke again—his voice quiet, almost sad.
"No," he said at last. "Not everyone who wears them is a sage."
The boy blinked, confused. "Then how do I know who is?"
The sage looked up at the sky, squinting at the pale sun. "You don't," he said simply. "You must find out yourself. The robe can hide a liar or a saint. Only the eyes that have seen both will know the difference."
The boy lowered his gaze, thinking deeply. "Then… what if I can't tell the difference?"
The sage smiled again, but this time the smile carried a hint of sorrow. "Then walk your path anyway, just go beside them. The truth doesn't hide behind faces or clothes. It lives in the way you see, the way you act, the way you listen."
He reached out and gently placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. "Go find it, little one. Go, before the world fills your ears with too many voices."
The wind blew softly through the trees, carrying the scent of dust and old wood. The boy felt something stir in his chest — some part fear, some part wonder. He didn't know where his journey would lead, but he suddenly knew he had to go.
He looked up once more, but the sage was already looking away, eyes closed, as if he were listening to something the boy could not hear. Again there talk started...
The boy looked at the two carved idols again, the smiling one and the furious one, his gaze flickering between serenity and rage, as if both faces were speaking to each other through silence.
He asked quietly, "So… do I need to choose your path to find the truth?"
The sage, still sitting cross-legged beneath the thick roots of the bell tree, opened one eye and smiled faintly. "No. You should find your own path, your true path towards truth. Not mine, not theirs. Every soul is born with a road carved beneath its feet. Only you can walk on yours."
The boy nodded softly, brushing sawdust from the ground, his attention once more returning to the twin statues. Their shadows stretched long, one swallowing the other as the sunlight shifted. He asked again, "Are they truly the first ones to find the truth?"
The sage exhaled through his nose, voice low and distant. "Why don't you think they might not be?"
"I don't know," said the boy. "It's something that bothers me. Even when I look at them, I feel like I'm forgetting something. I don't understand why. Can you tell me?" He paused, realizing, and chuckled faintly. "Ahh… sorry, you don't talk much, right?"
The sage laughed softly. "Now you're nit picking me, little one."
"Maybe," the boy replied with a grin.
"Well," said the sage, shifting his weight, "they are believed to be the first ones to find the truth. After them, many walked the same road, but no one truly found it again. The path of truth doesn't repeat, it transforms. Just as a river changes shape even if its water is the same."
The boy tilted his head. "Then there was no one before them?"
The sage smiled faintly, eyes gleaming like coals under dusk. "There might have been. Or maybe not. I only know this much. There is no proof left, no pure scripture. The rest is all memory… and memory lies."
"So these were written in those old scripts," the boy said thoughtfully, "and people started to believe them. Even you believe because they are written?"
The sage gave a long breath, his voice like the hum of old wood. "We believe what can still be touched and read, but even those writings… they are fragments of human's minds, mixed with fear, love, and madness. The original truth might have been simple, but it drowned beneath people's words. What remains now are echoes, not meaning. So, little one, don't take anything as whole truth unless your heart trembles when it hears it. Then you'll know."
The boy nodded slowly and sat cross-legged before the sage, holding the two small figures. Their wooden faces seemed to shift in the dappled light, one smiling, the other sneering.
"Now," said by the sage after long pause, "I've told you about both of them. Paths of life. Whom do you choose?"
The boy looked at them again and said softly, "When I walk my journey, I'll choose them according to the moment."
For a second, the sage stared at him, then burst into a deep, genuine laugh. "Ha! Now you understand! You've spoken like one who has seen both dawn and dusk."
The boy smiled back, proud of himself.
"But," the sage added teasingly, "why are you still holding them? Do you want to take them? I cannot sell them to you."
The boy tilted his head. "Then… can you teach me how to carve them?"
The sage paused for a long time, his face unreadable, then finally nodded. "That… might be possible."
The boy's eyes gleamed. "Thank you!"
The sage rose from his seat, his saffron robe catching the light like flame in the breeze. He walked behind the bell tree, where the roots curled like serpents around a patch of soft soil. The boy followed him quietly. There, a single lotus was blooming in the shadow, where sage was sitting.
The sage bent down beside it, and from a shoulder bag hanging on a broken branch, he began to draw out his tools, old but well cared for: a small chisel, a curved knife, a wooden mallet darkened by time, and a set of marking tools made of bone and copper. He placed them neatly on a flat rock and said, "These are my companions. Each one knows a different secret of wood. Together they sing."
The boy crouched beside him, eyes wide. "They look… simple."
"They are simple," said the sage, smiling, "but simplicity hides the deepest truth. You see, to carve wood is to talk with silence. The wood speaks back, not in words, but in resistance and release. When you strike it wrong, it cries. When you listen, it becomes your mirror."
The boy touched the chisel gently. "Does it hurt the tree?"
"Yes," said the sage softly, "but pain is not always destruction. Just like you, when you fall and bleed, you grow stronger. The tree gives part of its body so that truth can take form in another. It is a cycle, pain that becomes art, loss that becomes memory."
The sage handed him a small block of cedarwood. "Here," he said, "this is your first page. Write upon it not with ink, but with care."
He himself picked up another block and held a gourd in one hand. "You will follow my movements. Don't rush."
...............
The boy marked the wood carefully, using a stick dipped into a pot of green sap he had gathered from the bark of nearby trees. The scent was sharp, earthy, alive. He traced the lines just as the sage had shown him, hesitant at first, then steadier with each stroke.
When he began cutting, the sound of the knife against the grain felt like breath and heartbeat at once. "Don't fear," he said gently. "Even gods made worlds imperfectly. What matters is the next cut." Boy nodded and bit by bit, shavings curled away and fell to the ground like soft petals.
Two hours passed. Sweat glistened on his forehead as he studied what he had made, two uneven spheres joined by a narrow neck, the rough beginnings of a gourd. He sighed, unsure whether to be proud or ashamed. The sage took it from his hands without a word. With a smaller knife, he smoothed the rough edges, his movements calm and effortless, like the wind shaping dunes. Then he handed it back.
"Is it really good?" the boy asked, half hoping for praise.
The sage smiled. "You just started, and already you expect mastery? Patience, little one. Even the finest tree must grow before it bears fruit. But you have something many lack. That is a good beginning."
The boy smiled shyly, rubbing the back of his neck. "Thank you… but how much did you practice to make them so perfect?"
The sage's expression changed, the lines of his face grew thoughtful. "Perfect?" he repeated, as though tasting the word. "Ah, I was not talented like you. I practiced so long that I lost count of the days. The truth is, little one, nothing we make is ever perfect."
The boy frowned slightly. "Then why do you still try?"
The sage chuckled. "Because each time I carve, I come closer. Perfection is not something we reach, it is something we approach. The effort itself is the beauty. When you give your best, when your heart and hands move together, that moment becomes sacred."
He gently turned the boy's half-finished gourd in his palm. "Look at this. It's not flawless, but it carries your breath, your patience, your touch. Isn't that more real than perfection?"
The boy nodded slowly, a smile growing on his face.
"Good," the sage said, eyes glimmering. "Then remember, don't rush to be perfect. Just be true in what you make. Push yourself a little more each time. Learn from mistakes, yours and others'. In the end, it's not the gourd that changes… it's you."
To be Continued...