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The light bulb
The light bulb
There was once a little town on the outskirts of a big city called Wood Town, and although the town was no more than 100 miles from the city, the habitants of Wood Town had never visited the city, and those who did were told to never come back. There was this weird thought that everything pure ended at the start of the city line. People in Wood Town knew no more than homemade meals, warming heat from fire itself, wooden houses with wooden furniture and wooden like smell on their people and friends. Woodsters, as they called themselves dressed with white cotton self-made clothes, which were all pure white and lavender scented. Every night the Woodsters gathered around in the town center to sing and share food with the rest of the town. Each family had a culinary specialty, the Oak family made a delicious stew, the Pine family made the most soft and fluffy table bread, the Ivy´s always brought drinks and cocktails and the Hazels always brought dessert, they always respected each other´s roles. This applied to each Woodster as well; kids rehearsed their chants to sing to their families, teenagers were taught how to assist and help their families cook and later on set the big table at which everyone ate together, while young adults served the old while the old kept the right to rest. You couldn’t really tell the difference from one woodster to another, since they all looked pretty much the same; they all had golden skin, blond long hair, hazelnut eyes and little peachy lips. But there was this one girl, who’s eyes were a little greener and her hair a little darker, not really enough to call her different, except of course for her “unpleasant behavior” like the old man said, who always kept her in the mouths of others. She wore white, and helped at their gatherings like every other teenager did, but she always, same time each night stood up early from the table and sat alone at the end line of Wood Town, where the artificial lights from the roadway started. She could be seen from far, sitting in a wooden box, what she always brought, at the circular spot of light that the headlight created on the ground. It was told that the girl talked to the light bulb, some teenager who used to follow her had heard her talking, and some kids had once swore that they heard someone else´s voice as well. She spent hours talking to the light bulb, she asked him about life, the planets, and what was on the other side of the road. They had become big friends through the years, she told him how she saw the flowers and wished to dress in colors like they did and how she liked to draw but her mom wouldn’t let her do so, she told him everything, he was the only one who knew that she felt like a fish on a tree living in Wood Town. Anyway, the lightbulb and the girl talked a lot, they talked so much that woodsters were always angry at her, once they sent some teenagers to break the lightbulb with rocks, which they did, but right by the time that the girl stood up from the table, there it was the lightbulb again, waiting for her. Each night since she was 5 they talked; the lightbulb used to tell her fairytales about a place where people wore vibrant colors all at once, where people wished for food, counted a few minutes and it appeared through a window ready to be eaten. He also talked about some people, whom she still thought were fiction, who were worldwide famous for the painting they did; one of them he said, had red hair and only one ear, which she had found totally funny and fascinating. There was nothing that could break these two apart, he gave her hope and she kept him bright, whenever she was sad, he gave her comfort, whenever she felt lost, he showed the way, and although no one never got the relationship they had, she says that whenever she feels out of place or misunderstood she dreams about those colorful people and the paintings of the red hair man and wishes to one day run and see everything that´s hidden on the other side of the road.
