Once upon a time, there was a village at the foot of a mountain, a group of a hundred houses with about five hundred people living in them. Everybody had a job or an occupation, and the youngsters studied.
Among them, there was a guy named Neto, idle, dreamer, a little strange, but well-liked by everybody for its sympathetic flair.
Some made fun of him for doing nothing, so he began to wonder what he could do to find himself a role like the others.
So Neto began to think, think and walk, walk, walk until he stopped and looked at the mountain and decided to reach the peak; he had never been there. He took a backpack from home and walked.
Once at the top, he observed for the first time his village, little and small from that altitude, then he turned curiously to face the opposite side, beyond the crest of the mountain.
Below there was another village, more or less as big as his, but with several houses of varying colors, different roads, different bridges, everything was different, but Neto became curious of the large colored spots outside the village. He took out binoculars from his backpack and pointed it to have a better look … the spots were flowers, various flower fields, never seen. In his village there were immense flower meadows too, but not like those unknown ones.
Neto returned to his village, and the next day he went to ask the village chief for permission to collect bouquets of flowers from the fields, which was granted.
So he prepared many bouquets of flowers, of many colors and so many qualities, joined them together in one huge bouquet, tied it on his shoulders, and set off toward the top of the mountain, and then down to the different village.
Immediately the locals felt the kindness of Neto and greeted him with curious smiles, which he returned.
He opened the fragrant load in the different square, and gave to each person these flowers that they had never seen, creating in them an unexpected joy.
Everyone appreciated the gift very much, that sincerity of the present, and wanted to reciprocate in turn with gifts, giving to Neto all sorts of different things, food and other.
He found himself with a new load of gifts to take back to his village, but before leaving he asked the chief of the different village if he could collect bouquets of flowers from those huge different fields, which was granted.
We do not know how, perhaps excited by this new experience, but the young Neto could carry on his shoulders both gifts and flowers and headed back.
As soon as he arrived, he put down the load of gifts at home, then he went to the public square with bunches of the new flowers, never seen by the inhabitants of his village and gave them to everybody. None had ever seen the flowers from the other village, because of the usual legend which declared the top of the mountain was cursed.
They too were happy with the novelty, and they also gave Neto many gifts of all kinds.
So Neto opened two small emporiums of the exchange, one in his village where he bartered the gifts of the different village, and the other in the different village, where he bartered the gifts of his village.
He continued to carry bunches of flowers back and forth, not worrying about the curses, and the elders, remembering characters from old tales, said he looked like a smuggler, a flower smuggler.
But our Neto was not an outlaw, he based everything on the exchange, never coin or currency had appeared in the hands of the inhabitants of the two villages.
He brought in both places twice as many chromatic emotions, unleashed by the petals of flowers.
Then one day Neto got bored and joined together all the flowers he picked… and invented the rainbow.
Freedda
