Once upon a time in a land not so far away, two unbelievably unreal, yet good-looking people had a bit too much to drink. And whilst the two of them had been properly educated by both their objective educational system and their loving families, the only imaginably vast amounts of alcohol the two of them ended up consuming at the same party, on the same night, at the same address, coincidentally separately from each other, resulted in the most powerful chemistry upon their unlikely, yet unavoidable meeting. Such a powerful chemistry, in fact, that the usual 3-date waiting list... got skipped. She, too trusting and he, too arrogant, found a room and let their beautiful young bodies express their love to each other.
Love being the key word here, as 9 months later, they decided to call their surprise child by that exact name: Love. And what a stubborn lil' shit Love ended up being. Maybe had they called him something like Stable or Table or John, the two non-protagonist's lives would have turned out so much easier to navigate, plan and accept. But no, they had to name their kid Love.
I use the word kid, not as a millennial synonym for child, but with its original meaning - the horned beast that goats give birth to. Such stubborn, wild and pure things, that somehow the church decided to use that innocent and untamed flame as the symbol of the original rebel, the Morning Star himself.
So that kid, named Love, was born of pure universal energies. The kind of unavoidable energies, like a boulder slightly pushed with a pinky over a very steep hill. Despite the seemingly casual and avoidable beginnings, that boulder is hitting the bottom with a crash. Time can very well slow down to near infinity as you are watching that boulder free dive like a fat penguin towards his fish, but "There ain't no stopping that!".
And they didn't just name him Love, they did love him. Both of them have channelled all of their understanding, patience and love towards their hard-headed, wild and unexpected kid.
Had they only remembered to keep some love for themselves.
Because you see, like most children, Love was very unimpressed with how little love his parents had left for themselves. They had all the cliché excuses: work, family, debt, children etc... But Love, young as he was, while he didn't have the words or experience, he knew his parents were doing him dirty. Because, you see, love is something that should dominate any and every household. Respect, communication, pride, tolerance, understanding as well as compromise and just downright acceptance, are a fucking must. But love is THE lifeline. The foundation, the walls and the rooftop. Everything else is just furniture. Important, but without the house, it can easily end up a burden.
And Love grew up from baby to toddler to child, while watching his once in-love parents, fall further and further apart from each other. And because Love was too young to properly express his objections and alarms, his attitude became sour, and bitter and isolated, reflecting the diminishing love of his beautiful, smart yet misguided parents.
Time goes on, arguments get heated, and Love starts arguing as well. Teenage years are not kind on most people, but for Love?! They were text-book distressing. Having lost all respect for his parents who couldn't show their love to each other, despite it obviously being there, Love starting ignoring his parent's wise words:
Love stopped believing in love.
While he cannot clearly remember when he took that decision, what Love can clearly remember is that life became just a bit more tolerable and easier to navigate after that moment.
Time goes past fast, especially when someone thinks they have some sort of control, and even more so, when they are having fun.
Love, having given up the concept of "love", and escaped from the clutches of his parents that is the requirement of under 18-yr olds, has mingled with all sorts of people.
Love's parents were charming, smart, educated, sexy, sociable and easygoing. Basically, each of them formed the core of any party they showed up at, alone. The two of them, together, would feed the gossips for weeks. But when their surprise child walks in the room, everybody forgets about the two perfect parents. The kid is funny, loud, expressive and doesn't even know the meaning of shame. How can one not fall in love with him?!
Once Love was old enough to go to parties without his parents, he was already aware of his charms, and disillusioned with the concept of undying love between two people. Such a shame, I, as an objective narrator, would catch myself thinking, If I didn't know how this story ends ;)
Because you see, while Love was charming everybody within minutes of meeting them, he was never charmed himself. And that, combined with his stoic childhood and stern altruistic upbringing, meant he never even expected to ever be charmed.