The old town had a strange silence.
Its narrow lanes were cracked like the stories they carried.
Walls leaned, whispering secrets from decades ago.
And in the middle of it all… walked Mike.
Not many boys like him passed through these parts —
Rich. Educated. Polished.
But also restless… searching.
That morning, Mike had read about an unusual boy.
A boy who laughed when he got hurt…
And cried when something made him happy.
Most people stayed away.
They called him strange.
Some even called him mad.
But Mike was different.
He had read about trauma, about the brain’s emotional wires getting crossed.
He knew madness wasn’t always madness.
Sometimes, it was just pain… expressed in a new language.
So he went looking.
And there he was.
Under a giant banyan tree.
The boy was barefoot, talking softly to ants.
He smiled up at clouds… as if they were old friends.
Mike didn’t speak at first.
He just sat beside him, pulled out a fresh apple from his bag,
And gently offered it.
The boy took it, turned it slowly in his hands, then asked:
“Do you think apples can dream?”
Mike blinked.
Then smiled.
“Do you think they can?”
The boy stared at him.
“Only mad people ask such questions,” he said. “Are you mad?”
Mike looked at him for a long second.
He thought of all the men in history they once called mad —
The thinkers. The dreamers. The rebels. The believers.
“If madness means seeing the world differently…” Mike said,
“Then maybe I am.”
The boy grinned. “Good. Then you can understand me.”
They sat like that for a while.
No analysis. No lectures. Just quiet.
When Mike returned home that evening,
He didn’t open his books.
He didn’t read science, or psychology, or philosophy.
He just looked up at the stars and whispered:
“Maybe madness… is just a language nobody learned to read.”
And from that night forward, Mike changed.
He stopped judging the world’s strange souls.
He started listening deeper.
Because sometimes…
The most broken minds hold the most beautiful truths.
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