The egg shattered open and the bird awoke lying on its nest almost dead. Struggling for the sugar coated worms dangling from his colorful magpie mother’s beak, he was shoved in the commotion and fell six feet from the nest to the impact of the solid ground. The young man quickly got up to escape the Spartans invading Athens, his hometown where he spent many a day gliding 100 paintbrush strokes across a canvas. He had one more brushstroke left to run across his masterpiece when suddenly, the Spartan soldiers tore through his beautiful Athens and sliced the painting right across the middle, right through the face of the lady with the blue parasol. A homeless vagrant, he wandered through the urban mess of sidewalks and buildings that scraped the heavens. He peered into the windows of homes, glowing like compassion in the freezing night, looking for his new muse, a new inspiration, a new woman with a new blue parasol, the one to once again stoke the flames of his pulsing heart. But what he found instead was the same TV set telling of the same trite love stories, of the same vapid faces, and smiles, and eyes that twinkle and shine everlasting. At that moment, a man jumped from one of the homes’ window, followed by a trail of hurtling plates and angry yells. Off to the horizon of the rising sun he ran. He escaped from oppression, from the shackles of pretentious first love, so seemingly perfect, so seemingly everlasting, that locked him into his wedding and promised his happily ever after. The divorce papers withered in the mourning air and released the man and woman apart, so they could seek out the true love of their real lives. So off the vagrant walked, past the city, past the Alps, past the hundred heartfelt lonely nights looking for another blue-parasoled muse till he grew old and faded and a hundred different parasols lined after him, each hiding blushing maiden faces. Each parasol was a variant color, one was ebony, another red, ochre, there was magenta, and peach, one cerulean, there was one of every hue in the color spectrum but never could he again find the lovely blue parasol. Even after all the decades come and past, even after her face was lost and blurry like the engravings on an ancient Greek vase in the waxing and waning of the tides of time, even after the shining constellations of moles on her bare back had grown dim, her magnificent blue parasol illuminated and lived in the depths of his aging mind where it stayed youthful and new; the feeling of the way it swayed in the wind, the sound of its smile, and the embrace of its fragrance. Forever lived his first true love. When he tired of life, he opened his bedroom window, spread out his wings and flew into heaven, passing along the way, the divorced man from the city peeking from the shadowed alleyways, watching longingly at the wife, that was once his, originally his, prepare dinner for her adoring grandchildren.

I give you a story, a creative interpretation of first love and how it’s so lasting and always lives in ourselves forever, through the testaments of time, and courage, and a hundred repeating seemingly apathetic days.




the deviantart page: http://lykoleon.deviantart.com/art/Forever...t-Love-81745070

Been waiting to get my account back before I replied to this.

The changing of the seting is a bit hard to understand, going from what appears to be ancient Athens to relative modernday hence the television. At least I thought it was ancient Athens based on how the Spartan raid is something that happened long ago and seeing as how Spartan's really no longer exist. I also thought at first based on the example with the baby bird that when the Spartan ran his blade through the mans painting he also killed the man as well. It also doesn's seem to make sense how he lives afterwards to be homeless as the Spartans would have killed him for being male and Athenian(?) or taken him as a slave.

The only other bit of critism I can offer is pargraphs are your friend. I know a paragraph is technically something relating to one main point within a work and of course there are other english rules about this that I forget. Some say a paragraph should only be around 5 sentances, some say a minimum of 5 sentances, while others like I mentioned before say its to discuss a single main point within a work of art, which could arguably in literature cover an entire chapter. I say use your own disgression, unless its an english teacher no one is really going to care if you misuse a paragraph.

Unless it is quite evident and interupts the flow of the writing. See I could have easily added this on to that last paragraph, but yet it can stand alone and create a new topic in itself with out intertupting things much. Besides more paraphs makes it easier on the eyes and easier to read as one large one almost makes it seem a bit ranty.


Anyway onto the actual story, it reminds me of quote by Vincent Valetine, and can also be summed up as such "Too much hope is the opposite of despair... an overpowering love may consume you in the end." My various interpretions of parts are thus:
The baby bird is a symbol of both striving for what you hold dearest and in the end failing or a symbol for 'everything that could have been', it died early without knowing both the overpowering joy of love and the hastle and despair it can bring about. It its both unlucky yet fortunate at the same time.
I don't really have anything for the painting part other than perhaps it represents how the man cherished this woman, perhap a secret crush that he never confided in and the Spartan is perhaps either an inner struggle or an outside influence trying to show that moving on with life, rather than dwelling in the past is the best choice of action.
The man does not give up he continues his journey and in doing so notices all the love around him, on TV, perhaps other couples and begins to feel left out. He sees a man jump from a window and the divorce papers and probaly wishes it was that easy. Wishes getting out the situation he was in was as easy as signing a peice of paper, perhaps even that death seems to be the only solution. On the otherside of the coin it could drive him in his search further assuring him that failure to find this woman will mean failure to find happyness which could lead down a path similar to the man who jumped before. So overcome with greif that he cannot be with the one he turely loves he seeks to end it.
A area full of umbrella's of every colors, all but the one he is looking for which leads to despiration and discouragement. Perhaps even a symbol that the woman in the painting is not real, but perhaps an illusion represeting perfection and everything the man desires only no such ideal exists in the real world.
The line about the Greek vase fadding with time with represents two things to me, one how the memory dwindles over time and two how the memory is never as good and solid as reality. You can look at a picture of someone for hours and no matter how long you look at the image in your memory is never the same and never as clear as the one in the photograph.

I will say it was an interesting read and as I said before it can best be summed up with the words of Vincent, which is something I can relate to.

very good interpretation. muy bueno

i'm glad you didnt take evrything literally like my AP english class did.
"i thought he was talking about a bird!"

^I would suggest you have them look up what a metaphor is to refresh their memory an AP english class should be able to realize that. Not quite the right word, but close enough. It's also sad that people take things so seriously. I've watched AC with people who weren't big FF fans and I always have them make a comment about how Cloud wouldn't actually be able to jump that high or swing that sword that well. Which makes me wonder if they've ever bothered to take in what the title means which has the word "fantasy". It should be acceptable to them from playing other games. Devil May Cry is a good example of stylish stuff that is by no means possible in the real world, but is still cool nonetheless.

Not everything has to have a meaning, but yet it does. People always try to over analyse art and literature to dissect some sort of deeper meaning, but in the end what it comes down to is the simple fact that things only have the meaning that we attach to them.