Everybody in the village refer to Thomas as a fool.
He walks around wearing his jacket backward. During the day, he talks to birds as if he understood their language. At night he took his small lantern and walked straight to the field. He will begin to look for something no one knows about. Everyone in the village thought Thomas was mentally ill. Even the children laughed at him anytime he passed by.
With all those things Thomas never cares about what people think.
One night, Thomas was walking along the road with his lantern as he usually does at night. The moon was bright in the sky and the grass was shining because of the moon. Thomas hummed and talked to himself, suddenly he stopped to listen to the roaming wind.
He heard someone crying from afar.
The crying was thin and coming from a far distance, Thomas started walking towards that distance cry, to find out who the person was.
When Thomas got there. He found a woman with her two children in the valley. The woman looks helpless, she wore a torn dress with tears all over her face. Her two children were holding her tightly a girl of 5 years and a boy of 7 years old.
"We're lost," the woman said when she saw him. Her voice shook. "We've been walking for hours. My husband went to the next village for work. We were supposed to follow him, but we got lost in the dark." She started crying again.
Thomas put down his lantern and smiled. "Lost just means not found yet," he said happily. "And midnight is the best time to find your way."
The woman stared at him. This strange man with his backwards jacket and odd words—was he dangerous?
"The village is that way," Thomas said, pointing into the darkness. "But you can't walk straight there. Not at night. The fields don't work that way after dark."
"What do you mean?" the woman asked, scared and angry.
Thomas bent down to talk to the children. "Do you know why I carry this lantern?" he asked. The little girl shook her head. "Because at night, these fields are like a maze. In the daytime, the paths are easy. But at night, everything looks the same. If you don't know the secrets, you walk forever in circles."
"He's crazy," the woman whispered.
"Probably," Thomas agreed. "But I'm the only one here, and you've been walking in circles, haven't you? Following what looked like the right path?"
The woman said nothing. She knew he was right.
Thomas picked up his lantern. "The trick is not to trust what you see. Your eyes fool you. You have to trust things that don't make sense." He started walking in a strange direction, not toward the village at all.
"Wait!" the woman cried. "That's the wrong way!"
"Of course it is," Thomas called back. "That's how you know it's right."
The woman was desperate and scared. After a moment, she took her children's hands and followed the light from the fool's lantern.
Thomas led them on a path that made no sense. He turned left when anyone normal would turn right. He walked in circles. He stopped to look at mushrooms and made them walk around them three times. He sang strange songs and counted his steps in odd numbers.
The woman thought she would go crazy. But the children had become quiet and calm. The boy watched Thomas with interest. The girl had stopped crying.
"Why do you walk out here every night?" the boy asked.
"To remember the paths," Thomas said. "The fields change when no one is looking. New rocks appear. Old paths disappear. The maze changes. If I didn't walk every night, I would forget the way, and then I'd be lost like everyone else."
"Don't you get lonely?" the little girl asked.
Thomas thought about this. "The fields are full of lost things," he said. "Lost coins and lost memories and lost time. Sometimes I find them. That's enough company for me."
They walked for a long time. Then, suddenly, lights appeared ahead. Not just one light like Thomas's lantern, but many lights, warm and bright.
The village.
The woman was relieved immediately she saw those lights. They got to the village from the south road, that's where they have been trying to get to all this while.
"How did you know that's the right path" she asked Thomas
"When you couldn't find your way after walking in a circle" Thomas said "try walking in a spiral direction". Curves that don't close. Mazes inside mazes." He smiled. "It makes sense, really."
The woman looked at Thomas who have rescued them. The same man everyone in the village referred to as a fool. She came to realise that some people may look rough and dirty as a mad man, but they're still smart.
She appreciated Thomas for his smartness.
Thomas said "is okay". He gave the little boy his lantern "hold this for a moment".
The little boy took it from Thomas as if it was a gift. Thomas brought out three smooth stones from his backward jacket. He gave them each of the stone. In moonlight the stone shines silver colour.
"This stone is from remembrance" he said. The straight direction Sometimes is the worng road".
Thomas immediately turned back walking towards the field with his lantern and humming as usual.
The villagers still see Thomas as a fool. Later the next day in the morning, the woman started telling people what happened last night, yet some people still don't believe her. But some of the villagers believe her.
The world is never the way we assume it is. The thing we're not capable of doing, those we think are not capable may be the one to di it.
