Louis was a 16-year-old boy who lived with his aunts, uncles, and cousins in a large wooden house in an ancient town. They treated him like a servant and a slave. He was the one who cleaned the house and brought them everything they craved. The aunt did the cooking, but she gave him a miserable amount of food, keeping him very thin and dressed in worn-out clothes. For their part, the members of the Johnson family would yell at him, insult him, and humiliate him.
One day, Louis grew tired of living in that situation and decided to escape. He jumped out of the second-floor window and landed on his knees in the sandy street. However, his uncles, who controlled the household and were always watchful of everything that happened, noticed immediately.
Right away, they shouted through the window to the next-door neighbor, telling her to inform everyone in town to lock their doors and not let him in. The gossip spread from house to house, window to window, through backyards, and across their rotary phones. Every house in the town of Brishman closed its doors.
Louis walked through the streets crying for help.
—"Help! Help! They are mistreating me!"
But it was as if no one heard; the town had become a ghost town where only the sound of wind gusts could be heard. He knocked on the doors of several houses, but no one answered.
Eventually, he reached a tavern where the door was transparent. He decided to turn the knob, but it was stuck. Inside, he could see a group of men talking and laughing with large glasses of beer in their hands. Louis knocked and knocked on the door with both hands, sweating and with a furrowed brow, but it was as if they couldn't hear him—or were simply ignoring him.
The young man decided to continue his way, and further ahead, he came across the shop where he had sometimes been sent to buy supplies, but this time, the metal shutters were down. He lowered his head with tearful eyes and kept walking.
He was reaching the edge of town, followed by a vast, dusty, and hot desert. Louis didn't know what to do; tears ran down his cheeks because of the rejection he was experiencing and the thought that he would have to return to his uncles' house, where he would continue to suffer.
Despite this, when he reached the exit of the town, he saw an old man with a long white beard standing there. Louis ran to him anxiously, still with tears in his eyes, and said:
—"Excuse me, sir, I don't know who you are, but I need someone to help me. I don't know if you can, but you are the first person I've seen in the streets today."
The man immediately leaned toward him and said:
—"The whole town knows how they treat you, but don't worry, I am not like the others. You have a heart so noble that you do not deserve to live in such a cruel way. Come, walk with me, trust me. I will take you to a better place where you will be very happy. Take my hand."
Louis saw that the white robe the man was wearing was glowing, and it gave him peace and confidence. The young man took his hand, and the man led him out of town, across the desert, until they both disappeared behind a cloud of sand.
A few days later, the temperature in Brishman began to rise suddenly. It was as if they were in the desert itself, and the atmosphere became heavy. It was then that the neighbors realized Louis was gone; he had managed to leave.
Constant arguments began to be heard in the Johnson house. Day after day, neighbors saw through their windows that there were fewer and fewer people inside, yet they never saw anyone leave the house. Eventually, the screaming stopped, and the house was left empty. Over time, the building deteriorated, and sometimes those same screams could be heard in the early morning.
Inside the tavern, the men who once laughed with beer in hand were now seen pounding on the entrance door they had once blocked for Louis. Their skin was wrinkled, their mouths and eyes looked as if they were about to pop out, and their bodies appeared petrified. Every entrance to the place seemed to have been welded shut with iron; they wouldn't open no matter what. They were trapped. People outside only saw them with drooping lips and shriveled eyes. Meanwhile, the metal shutters of the shop never rose again. Not even a whistle came out of there.
Grey clouds took over the sky. All the neighbors locked themselves in their homes, hiding and trembling in corners. They realized you cannot harm an innocent person, for at any moment, a lightning bolt might strike.
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