In Erevan prison. An old man finishes his ten-year sentence (for what? I don’t know, and it’s not polite to ask.)

This is the day of his release but he doesn’t want to go. To go where, he asks. He knows no one, has no home, this is his home. The guards insist. Nothing doing. They push him. He resists, goes limp, lies on the floor like a loosely parceled bag of potatoes. The prison director shows up. The ex-prisoner refuses to budge. They call someone from the Ministry.

The someone from the Ministry shows up. OK, he says, I understand you don’t want to leave but you must. Go into town and hit the first policeman you meet. They’ll have to bring you back.

Hit a policeman? the old man says. Are you crazy?  They’ll beat me black and blue. No, I’ll go to a tobacco shop and steal cigarettes.

The someone from the Ministry, the prison director and the guards all agreed this was the better plan. So he left, made sure he stole several cartons of cigarettes and came back to his cell a happy man.

(And as one of the boys from Mali would say at the end of one of his tales: Kirikiki, mon histoire est fini.)