SHORT STORY WHITE FEET – BLACK FEET
WHITE FEET – BLACK FEET
Automatic traslation from the original story in Spanish. Not checked manually
In the picturesque village of Clearedfeet, there was a tradition as old as moss on stones: all inhabitants had to have feet either immaculately white or a deep jet black. There was no middle ground. The “White Feet” prided themselves on their daily pedicures with goat’s milk and talcum powder from the Alps. And the “Black Feet” rubbed themselves with a secret mixture of chimney soot and olive oil, which left a trail wherever they walked.
The mystery wasn’t how they did it, but why. No one remembered. Grandma Pura, the oldest woman in the village, would only say: “It’s always been that way. My grandparents had white or black feet, and yours, and your grandparents’ feet. It’s the essence of Clearedfeet.”
One day, a stranger named Blas arrived in town, a traveller with feet of a… normal colour. Neither white nor black. A scandal! The mayor, Don Rodolfo, a White feet with an obsession with symmetry, greeted him with his arms crossed.
“Young man, what is that aberration you have at your lower extremities?” he asked, pointing at Blas’s feet with a cane. “They’re my feet, Mr. Mayor. Flesh-coloured, like most people.” “Impossible! Here, they’re either white or black. Take your pick!”
Blas, intrigued, decided to stay and unravel the mystery. He observed the routines: the Whit feet slipping in the talcum powder, the Black feet leaving footprints everywhere. The arguments were epic: “Isn’t your white foot as white as mine!” or “That black feet looks more like dark grey!”
One afternoon, while Blas was helping Grandma Pura tidy her attic, he found an old yellowed parchment. It was a decree from the town’s founder, Duke Longfeet. Blas read it aloud:
“By this order, and to avoid confusion at the laundry, it is ordered that all socks be either white or black. And so that no one makes a mistake when putting them on, it is strongly recommended that the feet wearing them be the same colour.”
There was a deathly silence. Grandma Pura put a hand to her mouth. “All this time… for the socks?” she murmured.
Blas burst out laughing. The news spread like wildfire. At first, there was indignation. Then, a collective laugh that shook Clearedfeet. Mayor Rodolfo, with his spotless white feet, took off a sock and looked at it in disbelief. From that day on, the tradition changed. Now, in Clearesfeet, people painted their feet in every colour imaginable, but only once a year, during the “Lost Sock Festival,” in honour of the absurd but endearing story of their black and white feet. And Blas, of course, was named the “Discoverer of the Sock Truth.”.
White Feet – Black Feet – Short stories series – Copyright ©Montserrat Valls and Juan Genovés