I feel considerably better today than I did yesterday, so here's a positive one—no angst, for now.
Peace
The sun beams down from above; the soft, blue sky is lit perfectly, with no clouds in sight; a strong breeze whips the air, corralling the heat and causing a pleased sigh to emit from below.
Munich, for all of its designations, locales and landmarks, is a city. Germany, though full of interesting places and people, is little more than a county. Europe itself is only a single continent. These are the views of most normal people as they inhabit whichever place they call home, never giving a passing glance to the smaller, but no less important, things in life.
Munich, though, is not just a city, and Germany not just a county, and Europe not just a continent.
Not to him.
Things have changed. Where it once was an unforgiving prison, a boundless expanse seemingly designed for the sole purpose of holding him in, this world has now become a wondrous place full of unexplored opportunities.
Life will never change, but he has come to realize that one's reality is what one makes of it. Reality, in fact, is little more than perception; how he perceives his world to be, it will become.
That fact encourages him to persevere ever onward, content with surviving the harsh tragedies of his short life.
In many ways, it has enabled Edward to make peace with the world, and later, with himself.
People casually stride past him left and right, engaged in their own conversations. He takes in the stir and commotion on all sides, relishing it, understanding its place in the world—as he does with almost everything, these days. He has even come to comprehend that maturity is never a single point, or moment, or a physical aspect, but rather that it comes with finding the understanding he has so firmly grasped.
He will never be able to replace the friends—and loved ones—that he lost, but he can find the strength to move on.
His thoughts drift back to Alphonse, and his heart softens. He thinks of Noah, and a satisfied smile escapes his lips.
The possibilities are truly endless.
With a quick eye and a quicker hand, he reaches forward and grabs several plump apples from the fruit stand he is perched in front of. The woman tending the wooden market, a short, wisened sage basking in the shade offered by the overhang, says nothing. She elects, instead, to watch this young man with fascination. He radiates the aura of a content, mature individual, and she knows better than to interrupt his musings.
Finishing his selection with a large melon, he hands several Marks to the lady and turns, departing with a polite thank you.
The bag is heavy, and his legs are tired. It is getting hotter, and he is wearing long sleeves. The apartment is still relatively far away. He does not even know if Al will be home when he returns.
All he can do is gaze up at the sky and grin.
A/N: Hooray for optimism? I really liked the feel of this one. It still has relatively no situational action, something I'll have to correct, but I did manage to avoid romance (besides that small EdxNoah slip-in towards the end) and angst. This made Ed seem really happy, something I've been meaning to do with his newfound maturity in the movie. I promise that sometime soon I'll move past character development and implant some situations in some of these shorts. As a small note, when the movie ended, the inflation was in full force, and the Mark (papiermark, to be exact) had almost no value. In late 1923, the German government began printing rentenmarks, which almost immediately stopped the inflation. The rentenmarks were only temporary (in fact, they were in circulation for only one year), and a new Mark followed soon afterward, but I set this short right after the movie, which is about the time that the rentenmarks would be coming out.
All of 1,501 hits. Just thirty-eight reviews.
LL