Echo of Smiles

The knight attacked windmills because crowds smiled whenever he charged. He mistook every grin for proof of courage and every silence for failure. His black rhinoceros knew the mills were harmless but kept running; disappointing a hero seemed dangerous. At the seventh charge, the small clown did not laugh.

He simply held up a mirror. The knight saw dented armour, a frightened animal and a man begging strangers’ faces to tell him who he was. He lowered the lance. The crowd fell silent—the silence he feared most.

Then the clown smiled, not at the spectacle but at the decision to stop. One honest smile echoed farther than a thousand borrowed ones. The knight rode past the windmills, unsure of his destination and, for once, not ashamed of it.