When they asked him weighty questions he was accustomed to ignore them, and amuse himself with trivialities, cartoons drawn in the dirt, odd sculptures made out of trash. In this way many who came to him went away angry, feeling they had been deceived in him. Those who were cunning took heed of his trivialities and ascribed to them great meaning, finding in their surreal blasphemies the answers to their riddles, and went away satisfied, feeling they had understood him. Those who were wise – and they were few and far-between – paid attention to neither his silences nor his actions, but were content to work with him and ask him questions about matters of no matter. They went away from him in the end, because that was the way of things, that all should be apart from the people and places they had known, and whether they went away wiser than they came was a matter of no matter, beside the fact of their going.

For all who came went away, and all who went away returned, and still he amused himself with drawing in the dirt or building his oddments out of trash, until he, too, went away, only to return, only to go away.