Gaia (Adoa Coelho)

There was a country where everybody would constantly look down.

They would go up and down for and backwards without raising their heads. They were always sad but no one questioned it. It was always so. They were so used to it that all they could see was their own shadow. All they could see was `till the back of the person ahead. They always walked like dominoes – giving the same distance from one another, at the same pace and rhythm…

Grey was the color of everything – buildings, cars, cloths, instruments and so on…
One day a woman out of something that even she couldn’t explain, looked up.
-Uau! - She said.
In this thing covering the entire city, there was something strange. Could it be a color?

At home, moved out of curiosity, she went to internet to search…
In its maps of the planet there was this kind of halo involving the Earth that she never noted before. Well, she had a vague idea of it, but it was so faded… Perhaps while she was a child, she saw it, but she wasn’t sure of it.
So she found out now that it had a color – Blue. More strange then that is that it could have other colors according to the hours of the day!

The next day, as she went to work, she tried to see more of it. She looked up again and there it was! As the text said – blue, white – probably clouds, she thought – and then some other tone of blue, a darker one…

At work she couldn’t concentrate very well and the chief ask for her attention, ashamed she continued working putting her thoughts far away from her. The answers and the questions should come to her later. She had the responsibility to labor.
Going home from work, the very first thing she did was to look up and boom! Someone step on her – Look where you’re going, you! – She rapidly went to a corner to be at ease. There it was again… Now with different colors as promised in that article.
-How come I’ve missed this spectacle before?
As the light went down, she hurried home. There was no one in the streets already.
She couldn’t talk to no one because everybody was always hurrying somewhere. There was never time for anything else but work.
This time, at home she stopped for a little while and saw what was on the TV. She had it always on but only for the sound, to keep her company, she never actually saw it. She had no time for it.
That same weekend she decided to talk to her boyfriend – they were supposed to marry in a week! – Don’t waste time with such nonsense – He said! So she went back to look down again…

The marriage was fine, everybody was happy that day, happy with no smiles!
Sometime later she discovered that they were going to have a baby…

As the baby grew older and started to talk, he noted that his own mother would smile when she was taking care of him, and not only then, she would smile when she was in the street getting him from the kindergarten. Sometimes, as he himself would smile, his colleagues and teachers would ask him what he was doing, so he asked his mother about it. Patiently she explained the colors – red, blue, yellow – she explained that from those he could have others by summing it – green, orange, purple…

He was admired that she knew so much about this subject! In school all he was learning was the letters and the numbers. The teachers themselves wouldn’t know anything of that subject; they were only aloud to teach numbers and letters. It was also all they knew! Besides, why would someone just look up?
Mother and child would go unnoted to the limits of the city to find other colors. While doing it, they discovered other forms and things.
Going back home, they would take their time and everybody would yell – they had to walk everybody else’s rhythm.

The child would ask his mum why was that so – she wasn’t sure but she told him that everybody was so concentrated on following the rules and working that they all forgot how to smile, how to live, how to be nice and the colors.
Besides – she said – when you see only shadow, yours and everybody else’s, you forget that there are more than shoes to life; you forget that there is a Sun. Remember – she continued – the sun is there for everybody to enjoy it, but it will only shine in your face if you just look up!