The fountain at the end of the rainbow

In a village, nearby a big city, lived two children, a little boy who not long ago started school, and his older sister. They only had their mother, but once day she unexpectedly died, and the two children had to leave school and find a place to work so they wonlt starve. They took some books and c’othes in a bag, and set out towards the city. They went through the streets with magnificent buildings, looking for a job and at the same time learn a trade, but no handicraftsman received them, telling them that their timid and silly faces did not inspire them trust.

They entered a painting studio by chance. There, they found a big easel and someone working behind it, and the children thought the man didnlt even notice them. They s’owly entered and walked towards the easel, but the man behind shouted: 

 - Stay right there! Donlt move! 

 The children stood stone-still and stayed that way for long hours, until a hand, with a brush, appeared from behind the easel and signaled them to come c’oser.

They s’owly walked towards the painter and with amazement they saw the painting with the two of them painted on it, along a stork, castles, bridges …and more suns.

The painter took out some money from his pocket:

 - "This should be enough for you two, he said." Then he soaked his brush in paint and again, started painting. The children told him of their motherls death, and that they were looking for work. The painter thought for a minute and then told them:

- "Well, you kids could stay at my house, in the morning you could go to school, and when you come back you can stay here in the workshop and help me paint."

The children agreed and the second day they started working for the painter.

But even thought they liked painting and tried their best, they could not match the different colors of blue or yellow, and the paintings looked terrible. The painter was losing his patience, and full of anger wiped his brushes on the childrenls c’othes, such that they always walked around with stains of all colors. 
Moreover, when he was most infuriated, the painter colored their faces and made mustaches under their noses, and the children had to go about in the town all painted while the passersby stopped and laughed at them. 
So happened that the artist became poor, because no one wanted to buy his drawings, and fell sick. The boy remained with him, but the girl traveled on a plane to various countries and was able to sell some of the paintings for a huge amount of money. 

 She came back with a case filled with money and cold. The artist got well and asked the children to forgive them for the wrong behavior he had towards them. He opened the case with money and asked them: 

- "Tell me, dear children, what you wish for?” The boy said without thinking:

- "I want to see my mother!” And the girl shook her head in agreement. The painter thought for a while and said:

- "Hm, that will be difficult, but not really impossible. The boy jumped and grabbed the painter, his hands c’enched to his c’othes:

- "Oh please! I would be thankful to you for the rest of my life!”

- "My child, I have to tell you that this will not make you as happy as you think it will.” The boy puckered up and quickly said: 

- "It doesnlt matter, I beg you!” The painter looked at their red cheeks and lively faces.

- "Deal! Illl do that!” he said.  

 He soaked the brush in paint, grabbed the girl by her chin lifting her face, and she thought that he will scribble her face again, as he used to, and she frowned. The painter smiled, took her head kerchief off and drew a star on her forehead right under her bangs, then tied her head kerchief back. 

 - "You two have to go to the Fountain at the End of the Rainbow! Walk towards the sun rise, go out of the city and walk through the field, see, where the wild blue-bells grow. Youlll arrive at the frontier of a country where you will be met by some evil guards, fully armed, but who have to do their duty and not let anybody go through the frontiers. But you”, he said to the girl "show him the star on your forehead and he will let you pass through."

"However, no one can help you in the Skies city. It all depends on you” the master said, raising his forefinger. "Be very careful when you pass under the Rainbow Bridge, walk fast because it can collapse anytime!”… 

 The next day the two children woke up very early. Maria, that was the name of the girl, put on her country c’othes that she felt most comfortable in, and tied a head kerchief around her head, then took her brother by the hand, who wore his white chemise shirt and together they left. 

 Outside, the sky was c’oudy and dark.

The kids left the town and walked through the field towards the sun rise, guiding after the wild blue-bells of a dark blue, for two days and two nights without stopping. Then, they started c’imbing on the low c’ouds at the horizon, but the children didnlt notice and thought they were still walking on the ground; the only thing changing was the landscape, and it was plain, downy, with strange herbs, and were looking for the dark blue blue-bells that stained the white and gray sky. Here and there, between the c’ouds, they were able to see the ground, as if it were another world, strange, and made of drawings and lines. They walked for a long time, until the shadows of the buildings and derricks were casting on the horizon.  

 That was the Skies Country, and as they were getting c’oser to it, those images were becoming larger and exactly when they passed the monumental gate of a town, four guards, with misshapen faces, looking as iron, wearing armors with spears and shields, stopped them and set the spears on their chests. 

The children were frightened and forgot about what the painter told them to do, but the boy c’enched to Marials chest with his hands stuck on her raw silk headdress. Marials head kerchief fell off her head and when the guards bended over, they saw the star that was shining under Marials hair. The guards took their spears back and granted them free pass. 

The two kids entered the city and blended in with the multitude of people, who werenlt much different from the people on earth, except for the c’othes that they wore and their faces were kind. The kids were drawing attention to themselves with their tired and worried faces. They quickly intermingled through the crowd, and stopped too look at the surroundings – disoriented. 

 It was a really old town, paved with stone plates of yellow color, shiny and deteriorated from thousands of footsteps; it was a fortress with overarched windows, united by walls exaggeratedly thick, with castled and manor houses everywhere.

Some streets were anfractuous and wide, so that carriages can go through, while others were so narrow that the peasants could shake hands from their own windows. Here and there, the streets led to plazas with fountains in the centers, where the inhabitants were carrying water from. Among the roof tiles were little windows that looked just like someonels eyes, and the two children often thought that those eyes were blinking.

On the roofs, there were stork nests, families of five-six birds sitting on one leg, chattering and watching the crowds go by. 

The children were wondering whether they should dare ask anyone about the fountain or not. The girl stopped a woman who was walking with her little boy but the woman spoke an unknown language. Then the boy started talked to a stork that was sitting in front of an inn. At first, he thought that the stork was made of c’ay, and set next to the big flower vases, but the stork moved and the boy stopped and asked her:

- "Ms. Stork, do you happen to know where the Rainbow Fountain is?"
The stork looked at him with good will and started mumbling: 

 - "It is in a castle that has a fountain drawn on the gate, and the castle – you can find it if you pay attention to the eyes on the roofs. As she was saying this, the stork took off and flew to a tall chimney, sitting on one leg. Then, they understood that when they arrived to the right place, windows on the roofs were starting to blink, lifting the wooden rolling shutters.

So they strayed like this a couple of days, and no one helped them ; but they didn't even think about their hunger, or sleepiness, all they thought about was seeing their mother again. The stork was following them, and every now and then appeared on random roofs, sitting on one leg and mumbling to them: "Don't stop, donlt stop!”

The little streets had little plates with unidentified letters and they were so entangled that sometimes it gave them the impression that they're walking in a circle, on the same streets.  Fatigue, hunger and the cold air of the night wore them out. They saw as the passersby looked at them with compassion, and at times, a man or a woman would let down a bucket filled with water and said:  -

"Please, come in my house, my dears, I will give you food and you can rest…” Un a roof nearby, a stork was standing on one leg, watching them worried. A strange instinct, the words and the presence of the stork always made them refuse the offers of the people.

- "You know what?” said the boy to the girl. "I think that the inhabitants of this city came here just like we did, in a quest for the fountain.

They couldn't find it, couldn't withstand, received housing and remained here forever."

- "I think so too”, murmured the girl and shook off her tiredness and weariness. We don't need to receive any help, not even if we die."

They walked for another while, without counting the days, nights, weeks or even months. And one day, the boy leaned powerless against a wall. When he started walking again, his sister saw that his back was dirty of red and blue chalk, and saw that it had the design of a fountain. With their last strength, the children knocked on the castlels gate.  

An old and bent lady, dressed in black, was hardly coming from the bottom of a long courtyard, and it seemed that she was not coming any longer.

When she arrived at the gate, she searched the huge iron key for a long time through the pockets of her large skirt, then opened the gate and welcomed them in the courtyard which was paved with yellow flowers. Then she walked them to a hall of the castle that had old armchairs and a round and big table that occupied the whole room. 

The children were sat at the table and the stork that followed them, happily sat with them/ They looked at each other in the shiny tableware and the old lady stayed in front of them and told them about the Skies City, then asked them about the place they come from and what they're seeking. They told her everything and the woman went and brought them plates with foods, fruits, and drinks, and in the stork's front, she put a deep pot, full of pomegranates. The children and the stork ate with appetite and then thanked her. After they finished eating, they saw with amazement that the plates and cups were floating on the water. The shiny table was the surface of a fountain. It was really the Rainbow Fountain!

The old lady gathered the tableware and then a fish came to the surface, and flipped making a “Clop!” with his tail. 

The kids took water with a clay pot, drank, and all of the fatigue disappeared, and they became more beautiful and charming then before. They washed their eyes and the old lady brought them a towel to dry, and they dried they faces. All of a sudden, everything around became intensely colored, with strident colors. The old lady was a little girl of Maria's age, dressed in turquoise, with locks red as fire! She brought them clean clothes and helped them get dressed; the girl in a golden dress and the boy in blue clothes.

Then she walked them to the tower of that castle, where they saw the whole city through which they walked for so long, and saw that the walls of the city were of green and turquoise granite, the roof tiles were joyously colored. A network of thin bridges of rainbows united the towers of all the castles above the city.

From the tower that they were in, a solid rainbow began, and climbed very high in the skies, and the sky seemed tough and of a strident blue. They said their goodbyes to the girl in turquoise and started walking on the bridge. Remembering the words of the painter, they started running. The rainbow was ascending, then started descending, as they were running on the blue and red s’opes and their hearts beating as they were about to break out of their chests, because at the end of this rainbow, they discerned a woman with arms that embraced the whole rainbow, and who couldn't be any other than their mother. She hugged them and held them tightly to her chest, then she put them down, and they saw that she was a tall, thin and fragile being, and her hair was long and chestnut brown, with golden shades. Mother leaned towards them, took them by the hands and walked them to a city even more fantastic than the Skies City. The walls and towers were much higher, thinned and more laced, and were made of crystals and precious stones, transparent, reflecting the lights play of the sun. After they visited the city and traveled by different trains, they went on a larger train, made of red and blue mosaics. Four suns were rising and setting one at a time here and there, and wherever the sky was darker, there were stars bigger than the ones on earth. The three started playing basketball with a blue ball

The baskets were very high and the ball was outlining the big canopy of heaven. The hard and glassy surfaces underneath and around them were reflecting their voices, the dribbling of the ball, in melodious echoes, and multiplied their silhouettes in a multitude of images, uniform or distorted, and this by itself was a game.  

At a point, the Mother threw the ball so high that it remained on the skies and then they saw that there was a sun.

They then arrived on a field freshly ploughed, soaked in oil and painted by thick shapes of brushes, in thousands if colors of purple, yellow, dark green, bloody red, and indigo.

The field was full of hoof marks that looked like mouths with enormous lips and when they stepped into them, the hoofs caught their legs and they had to pull themselves with strength to come out. On a pasture they saw the cows, with black, white and purple spots. The oil that soaked the land made the colors shine so intensely that they always had another shade of color depending on the angle that they saw them. But they didn't get dirty, the colored slime was sliding on their skins without leaving vague spots that didn't grow din, then disappeared. The grass has tens of colors of dark and fresh green, and it was loaded with flowers, of golden, red and purple colors, and from them, thick pollen was flowing. Clouds of powder of shimmer pollen were floating above the think grass as if they were traced with brushes too think. The three sat on the grass next to the lily bushes whose corollas were hanging filled with pollen, and when the children bended to smell them, the flowers licked their cheeks leaving a trace of dark yellow.  

 In the Rainbow City, there was no street without at least one painter working on a wall or at a window, in harmony with the things and colors around, and they walked and painted the white walls of an old fortress, and this labor captivated them entirely and took a long time.

The stork was climbed on a wall, and of course, was analyzing everything. At night, they all slept in a bed with mattresses made of clouds, in a room filled with toys. 

 One day, all three of them sat in the floor and started setting cubes one on top of the other, building all kinds of houses, columns and epistyles, and the more cubes they put the more that the walls grew, and now made up a palace with terraces, and they were running up and down the stairs, looking at themselves in the mirror walls, and as they were running through a file of halls that intertwined, they realized that their mother was no longer with them. 

The called her and searched for her everywhere, but couldnlt find any trace of their mother. Their meeting came to an end. The castle began to shake and collapse and the two kids ran holding their hands while behind them, tons of crystals were crumbling with deafening noises. They were running on a rainbow that descended on the earth, and the stork was running and flying next to them. They passed the c’ouds when the bridge was beginning to vibrate and its intricate structures started to dismember piece by piece. The children ran further until they fell among glowing fragments of metal and glass.

They did not fall all the way down. From a plane nearby, a couple of blue parachutes were launched, and the parachutists caught the kids in their arms and landed at the end of the town where they first left. The stork landed next to them.

The children came back to the master painterls workshop. The painter was hiding behind his canvas and was painting everything but the stork flew and sat right on his easel.