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.

Introduction

The boy with the lace parasol is a story I started years ago, when I bought a lace parasol. The concept of the story has majorly evolved over that period. What started out as an ideal, utopian, almost diary-like view on my life became a more honest approach to it. Splitting up the different ideas and ideologies of me and my family and friends. these pieces were reassembled. Making the story fictional, the different characters a little bit shortsighted at first. But in the end it will get deeper I think.
the events are almost all fictional, No names will be linked to persons in real life (maybe one or two), and no places will be situated. The story is still evolving and in the starting point of actual writing. I follow no rules when it comes to writing.I write what I think and do some slight editing at the same time. So in the end I do have a lot of spelling mistakes and such, as English is not my native language. So I hope you will forgive these (if anyone actually does ever get to read this...)
the blog will feature the story, but aside from that also pictures, sketches and music related to the story.
So if anyone gets to read this: enjoy the story of the boy with the lace parasol.