Without even realizing it, he was already at the doors of the town, his goal. The people of that place wandered from one place to another, everything was clean, neat, but everything was gray, gray, gray the horizon, gray their faces, gray their words, gray, gray, gray All beautiful but gray .... Interlocutors without listening, workers of disdain, people only people, without beginning or end, without eagerness, without hope, all gray.
Step by step the old man looked, asked but no one seemed to hear him, they saw him, they heard him but without interest, for those people it was another one that had arrived, for what to pay him interest. The old man walked block to block, it was another one because he did not carry anything interesting, but for a very black book under his arm, he wore it with great zeal.
Suddenly he found what he was looking for to begin his task, an inn. Upon entering everything as the village very clean but gray.
A matron of bad temper, wanting to be kind, attended to him, answering immediately that he could choose from any of the 24 rooms, since for a long time his last guest had left and no one ever returned since. Everything was interrupted by the insistent and curious gaze of a boy, who referred to the old man's book, to which he responded in a harsh and sharp, "not for young people now" The matron became less hostile, but still confident and required of the luggage, to what the old man said, I only have this book. The boy took the opportunity to say, it must be very important, but this time he was interrupted by the midwife. Sir, if you do not have luggage, please pay in advance.
Already installed in his room, the old man remained next to the strange book until midnight, when he turned off the light and there was a strange soft but familiar noise, the boy who was snooping from the next room through the keyhole felt He shivered at the noise, it reminded him of something, something common but unpleasant and painful, he tried to remember in vain, if he only heard it again he might guess. But fear was seizing him, because everything was in darkness and I can feel something very soft that caressed his leg, something that he did insistently, something that emitted sound, something that in the dark he did not see, something that suddenly began to shine, two fires, two lights, ayay! yelled the boy, while running terrified, not without first having stepped without wanting, but very strong the tail of that unfortunate cat who wanted to caress him moments before .
It was almost 6 o'clock in the morning when the sun touched the window and an impertinent beam of light slipped in and woke the old man, who immediately got up, took his book, barely cleaned himself and left, crashing and almost rolling on the floor with the curious boy.
So time went by, the moon behind the sun and this in the same rhythm to meet her, every day the old man in the night with his ritual, the silence was disturbed by that familiar but strange noise, for the boy who did not He was losing time to make the crack in the doorway his gaze. The noise became increasingly familiar and far from being unpleasant the boy was waiting with the intention of deciphering the mystery that enveloped the old man at night.
Every morning, as we know, the old man left his room very early, what was noticeable was that the book with black leather lining that the old man kept with great zeal, became less and less bulky.
One morning the people of the town crowded in the square seeing something unusual that was happening, in the snowflake of the trees, in the apex of the branches in the head, a strange coloration was seen, different from the gray to the two-color of the town, there at the top of the trees, the sun bounced its rays against that spot other than gray, never observed and that someone said as I heard, they say green.
This unusual event was a subject of conversation for some of the villagers who dared to listen to each other as they rarely did. Thus the day passed, the rest immersed in the disdain and normative for its inhabitants.
The next morning, the uproar was greater and the neighbors showed with their fingers towards the firmament some strange beings floated in the firmament and that they not only emitted pleasant sounds but also they were drawn of different very striking spots. The comments were not allowed to wait. For some bad omen, others listened but without the slightest importance. The most well-versed began to weave weird strange conjectures, that if it was a bad sign for the people, that the old man was a kind of malignant sorcerer, they would see him pass and of course the book that aroused so much curiosity was increasingly thin.
The boy at the boarding house had not stopped in his curiosity, and that night he managed to enlarge his magical viewer, so that he could capture more visual space and in this way determine the reason for what was a nocturnal ritual for him, each time the old man took out the book, turned off the light, and in the middle of the darkness you hear the mysterious noise that the old man made.
When in the morning someone shouted, and this cry was added to murmurs, amazes and run of people, in the town square was a real uproar, the little gray town, was no longer gray, dichromatic, on the contrary a whole coil of spots polychromatic, rainbow, the sun with its light and the prism of nature filled the town with colors, the surprised inhabitants listened to each other, interlocutors with an answer, they did not feel disdain or apathy. Someone commented, he shouted, it's a witchcraft spell, look at the sky full of singing birds, dressed in carnival, of peace. As always having no answer, someone should look for it or else someone should be the culprit.
Of course someone said, the old man has the fault of the book, I said his presence could not be for good, this even when it seems it is nice and different it can be evil. Let's look for the old man, let's go for him, and so each of the people who were now listening and perceiving themselves but who did not realize it, began in unison to ask themselves to see themselves, to feel themselves. Each one of the settlers was directing the glance towards the inn, looking for the old one to demand an explanation to him.
Agglomerated between bulla and astonishment, between fear and recklessness, a crowd was formed, which demanded no one knows to whom the presence of the old man of the book as they called that walker who days ago crossed in a decisive way and walk thick but firm.
A silence suddenly interrupted the noise, they were seeing each other, they were watching, they were understanding, there was no disdain, everything came in harmony, the people resplendent, infinite colors in its range, shine to break the sun's rays on the things and objects, melodious singing of birds, rainbow flapping in the sky, very but very green flakes in unimaginable tonalities. Everything was a landscape never witnessed by those people.
The boy, one of the first to react, prying, curious by habit and way of enduring the annoyance in which he had remained until the arrival of the old man, exclaimed, so let's look for the old man, let's go to my mother's boarding house, find me now.
This was how the human excitement, as they moved towards the pension, one by one men, women, children were pigmented with colors, gave the feeling of a kind of threshold that to be pierced, drew and brushed of varying shades to each one of them.
The cement of the streets, seemed to moan in pain, rumbling at each firm step of the villagers. The boy in front of the troop, as a guide, feeling leader and being the son of the owner of the boarding house, allowed himself to make his way to the old man's room.
Standing in front of the door of the room, no one seconded him in the idea of entering. Only he his five fingers like pincers turned the knob with the precaution, stealthy; the sweat was spreading his forehead, threads, streams of sweat fell from his head, the fingers then danced, shuddered to the sound of the accelerated tun tun of his heart.
Magic turn the door wide, the room in twilight, only the inside. The breeze that sneaked out of the window as one who also wants to investigate, impertinent choco with the door causing it to close abruptly, causing an over jump to the boy, who at the time I stop sweating and sweat almost freezes.
Where the old man is, where he is, the room was illuminated or his sight adapted to the gloom, now he could see more clearly the interior of the room.
There was a murmur, louder and louder, I paid attention and managed to determine that the noise came from the hallway behind the door of the room that had been closed before, it was from the scary people who did not want to accompany him.
With more mental and visual clarity, standing in the middle of the room, next to the bed where the old man slept, began to see, to distinguish, on the floor and the bed were very thin white sheets scattered, took one of them and saw that he had a sign, which for the time being was familiar to him, if he recognized that sign, he took one and another sheet and they all had signs, some similar, these were large and black.
With his eyes fixed on these white sheets with big black symbols, the boy thought, he remembered, where as when he had seen them. Suddenly it came to mind in a hasty thought, his memory was full of answers, they piled up but they were so many that they could not come out like sounds from his throat, closed his eyes and there they were clearly dancing each of the symbols, shout very hard , they are already numbers, if numbers, the days of the week, those of the month, day of birthday, day of celebration, day of easter, day of graduation, day of classes, day of the love ... are days, are the days.
That is how that people, facing the passing days, the present and the coming, understood the need to feel them live them, understood that time is a relative magnitude and that only we can do the same moment of happiness and hope. From that day, its inhabitants saw and continue to see that the people are colored and that each of them can be more alive according to our mood, that we can understand and listen to each other in the space of time that passes.
A figure untimely. On a dusty road, he advances in a hurry ... he is the old man who approaches another village as gray as those he has painted with rainbows ... Look out the window, see if the old traveler has entered the main street of your town.
