the first piece of the puzzle

It's weird now, looking back at those days, the whole year, actually.

It is very strange that one person can turn your whole life around. without warning, everything you believe gets completely turned around.
I don't believe everyone has this kind of experience, or gets to know a person that gives it. Yet, for some reason, I did. I didn't ask for it, didn't search for him, he just came rolling in my life. But I never had any regrets getting to know Cyril. Thanks to him, I am the person that I am today, a better person than I would have been if I hadn't met him.

I first saw him at the end of summer, school was about to start and me and a couple of friends were hanging around in the streets of the suburb where we had grown up. It was a very simple town, without any extravagance or weirdness.

But for one year, that would completely change.

“Boys shouldn't walk around with thàt sort of umbrellas,” Alex mumbled. The other ones agreed grunting.
It took a while before I ealised he had said anything at all, for I had been staring at the person walking across the street. He was like nothing I had ever seen before, but I can defend myself with the argument that I never had been in big cities before. Me and my parents lived a quiet, simple life here, and travels could not be afforded. Not that I minded, I was used to it.
So offcourse I couldn't have seen someone like Cyril before, for my town was small and without extravagance like I said before.

The first time I saw Cyril, walking on the streets, he was wearing red poofy shorts and a undershirt, with heart-shaped sunglasses covering his eyes. Besides that, he was carying a lace parasol with him, covering him from the bright, late august sun.

It was this that had triggered Alex' reaction, The first of many that had to come. I on the other hand liked the parasol, for it suited the unknown boy walking there. He had this natural elegance over him, a subtle smile playing constantly on his lips, as if there was a dirty secret that only he knew. One could have called him arrogant, but it wasn't that, it was him that had realised that everyone had a secret, and that he didn't care about anyone's comment because of that. That smile was his self-defence.