"Congratulations," Lao-Tze said to the air, keeping his back turned. "You aren't even out of breath."

"There was once a clever young man who lived near the Ganges and wanted..."

"Come, come," Lao-Tze said, rising and turning. "I have no time for stories today. Let's have tea." He took the young man by the arm.

"Ah, youth," Lao-Tze muttered as they walked together. The young man was a few years past beautiful, and, sure enough, was afflicted with that pointy, jutting chin which bespeaks over-eager caution.

Sipping the tea, the young man opened the conversation. "Sorry to be late. I was longer in Tibet than I expected. It took more than a year to master leaving the body, and another year to learn the fashioning of tulpas."

"But you did it?"

"Oh yes."

"Congratulations. And where were you before Tibet?"

The young man glanced with small surprise at the old man. "Benares, as you well know."

"What did you learn in Benares."

"Loaves into fishes, water into wine, the usual."

"You mastered it all?"

"Of course."

"Congratulations. What of raising the dead?"

The young man set his pointy jaw forward and sighed. "You are the first holy man to force me to say why I have come."

Lao-Tze suppressed a laugh. "Excuse me. My manners, I'm afraid, have deteriorated up here over the years."

"When can we begin?"

"Begin what?"

"You will force me to say?"

Lao-Tze fell silent, sipped the tea, looked longingly back at the herb garden and the weeds, then at the young man. Finally he looked away and stared at his favorite plum tree. Under his breath he said, "Shit, shit, shit."

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said, 'Shit, shit, shit.'"

The young man now stared at the plum tree, as if expecting to find some important message there. At length, his brown eyes lighted up, the pointy chin withdrew slightly, and he said, "I didn't need to come."

A look of millennial sadness washed all remnants of Lao-Tze's weed happiness from his lined face. He truly looked 10,000 years old. "No, you didn't. What will you do now?" He said this in a whisper, much as one might speak to a rambunctious cobra.

"Go back and free my people from their terrible oppression."

"Yes, I suppose you will."

The pretense of tea was dropped and both sat in silence until the afternoon shadows had begun to re-paint the plum tree.

"Well," said the old man. "Let me at least give you something to see you on your long way home."

He went into the hut and returned momentarily carrying a small box covered in aquamarine silk. He gave it to the young man. "It's not much."

The young man took the box and opened it gingerly. He didn't crack a smile.

Lao-Tze began to cry.

"The young man closed the box and put it in his bag. "Why are you crying?"

"At your knowledge, your wisdom, your skill, and the awful suffering those two things swinging between your legs are about to impose on the world."

The young man blushed.

For a moment, Lao-Tze's tears stopped and he looked expectantly at his visitor.

"I will come back, old man, when I've finished. Then we can talk." The chin turned and aimed down the mountain.