BIRDS IN THE HEAD

…I could not give him the pencil because I was using it in I do not remember which boring notes, but I offered him to paint a small pig in his hand.

Unexpectedly, the word got spread. Out of the blue I found myself surrounded by a swarm of kids demanding, very loudly, to get painted of animals in their chapped little hands due the cold and muck. Skins of burnt leather: some wanted a condor, some others a snake, others little parrots or owls and I also did not lack those wanting ghosts or dragons.

And then, among all that fuss, a little helpless kid, less than a meter tall, showed me in his wrist a painted watch in black ink.

“My uncle who lives in Lima sent it to me” he said.

“And does it work well?” I asked.

“It slows down a little bit” he admitted.

Eduardo Galeano

The Book of Embraces