Hi! I have to say...this. is. a very short oneshot. Just something that I wrote when reading a quote from Ray Bradbury...he's very awesome XD
Well, one of the oneshots...this story is a collection of oneshots...not humor for once. Just..poetic. I'm feeling deep today XD
You know how Georgia O' Keefe made her paintings big so that people would stop and look at them? Well that's the idea behind this crappy oneshot. The picture Nico's examining isn't really PAINTED BY Georgia...it's the general idea. You get it.
Nico wished that people would just...stop and smell the roses once in a while.
They never knew. Never knew how precious nature could be.
Every day, in Manhattan, men and women in black trench-coats scurry along to their next destination, taking for granted what's around them...trees, flowers, grass.
Taking advantage of the fact that they can touch them, by not touching them at all.
And the paintings. Nico loved the paintings. No one else seemed to.
He didn't know why. Was it because of his 1940's childhood (He didn't like the fact that the Stolls always felt the need to remind him that he was an old man.)
Or maybe it was because a painting held something real. Something timeless. Time had always been an enemy of Nico's.
He was in the wrong generation (Again, Must the Stolls always bring it up?)
He was forced to play part in a war that he hadn't agreed to sign up for in the first place. And more importantly, the wretched Lotus Casino had taken away more of his life than he ever imagined.
Nico clenched his fists and ground his teeth together, recalling the sweet, indulgent smells of the hotel. It had been so captivating, with the video games...and the room service. Bianca...her green cap...
Terrifying. The boy shook his melancholy thoughts from his head. All in all, those things were just time consuming, and he despised things that took a lot of time.
Nico's fingers brushed past the artwork he had come across while walking around New York. While hoards of people bumped past him and shouted at him for stopping, he yelled back, "Why don't you just stop and look for once then?"
It was a beautiful painting. A blooming, white flower stood against a vibrant orange background. It was layered with light hues of yellow and red, and the flower held an aura of power around the petals, as if saying, "I'm a flower that can never die, immortalized in swirls of white and grey. What do you humans hold above me?"
For some reason, Nico was drawn to this picture. It was so...alive. So bright. So not him.
The son of Hades was known for Death. So why look at a lively, blooming flower? Every flower he ever touched in real life withered away into dried roots anyways.
Right on cue, Nico spotted a lone, orange and blue dotted flower growing in the cracks of the sidewalk. He bent down carefully and plucked the flower out of the cement, and watched mournfully as it crumbled to dry yellow pieces.
"Death," he muttered, cursing under his breath. "All I'm good for anyways."
He took one last look at the painting, and with minimal hesitation...he threw a ten dollar bill at the woman selling them and grabbed it, walking away before the painter could ask any questions.
The flower was his. He smiled, covering it with his leather jacket, protecting it from the harsh winds.
Despite the strange looks he got from passersby's, Nico was happy for once in a long time. This flower represented his hope. His happiness. His freedom...loopholes he could find around his curse.
This flower...was one piece of nature that would never die in his hands.
Wow. All this came from an unrelated Ray Bradbury quote :) Thank you, English class! Okay, this isn't that amazing, but give it a shot XD. Review?