Nov 11, 2023
I appreciate everyone who took the time to read the story. This is my first story, right before "Sunflower Seeds". I thought really deeply about the messages in my first story, so I wanted to make a warning just like my second story. There are many layers and similarities I made with the real world and very much poetic storytelling, so I wanted to make sure I explained what I meant about what I said. Once again, due to the short writing period, I couldn't provide much explanation during the process. And to avoid confusion about the characters or the main course of the story, I've listed some points here.
First of all, putting every trope or any ideal that I could have with the story aside, I wanted to portray and tell a character's story that was completely unrelated to the real world or real conditions. I came up with a woman that would be viewed as an "Angel", basing my main reason to portray death, which was "Thanatos" in this story, and desire to live, which was portrayed as "Eros", and came up with a bigger ideal of life that would portray a bigger message.
I didn't want to directly come up with something that would be the exact same as "Into The Night" and portray a couple's story. Or somebody for the will to die I would say. I wanted to pick a human being, that would follow along the line of unnatural and explore life and death after many qualities of life.
I especially put the details of her elegance, her long red hair, and emerald green eyes to portray an angelic-like being, but still would be the same as a human being with her fear and her will to survive upon the seas. I wanted to balance the ideal of people portraying that very person as an "Angel", and as a "Devil", because of how she walked all over the sea. I wanted to give a better understanding of her complex reality from the perspective of the town folks and the passing pirates or sea thieves, so that her presence would be better understood by the different types of challenges she would face. I wanted to portray her in a humanistic manner, as we, the viewers, view the story from her perspective and journey, and from a bigger perspective that sees through her emotions. The idea of her foot touching the sea and "Expanding", was a metaphoric way to tell how her "steps", which were her "will to live and the effort to survive", was the only way for her to "survive" and walk over the sea. She was confined by her past life and couldn't move "further", so the sea pushed her forward to accept death and its grasp, so she would "expand" as she walked and keep on living to see "Eros". She had to step forward so she wouldn't "sink to death" and have a proper purpose of living that forcefully pushed her to see more, and "Expand".
She was in balance with the struggle to keep living, and slowly walking towards death itself, which she deeply feared, but still humbly accepted because "death was under her feet", as she would portray at the very end of the story.
I especially picked sea animals to accompany her, showing that as she would walk over the sea, and ran away from her past to her unknown future, because she was destined to, that she would understand the things that she experienced, and the beauty lying under her feet was no reason to be stuck at the moment and be chained to the present. The very reason her to keep going, was actually pushing her to be not confined to any beauties of life, and simply and humbly appreciate them as they go by. Birds flying over her heard, also a bigger reminder that they were much freer than her, showing they could travel to any point they wanted because they weren't confined to the very moment or place they were living. They had to "travel", to keep "living." That is why I called the episode "Expanding Sea", as it would include many values of life that actually teaches her to "Expand" and "Accept".
She saw wars, and people going mad over reasons to keep "living", so they would force "death" upon others. They were all "stuck" in every moment they were living.
So that is why she became dull. That is why over time she started to feel no emotion. No cold on her bare feet. No pain in her back and the past she ran away from. No sight that terrified her. So her eyes became "dull" in the middle of the story. This was a metaphoric way to show how death was at every corner of life and the world itself, so her walking on the sea, expanding as rejecting death itself to have hope just for another second, was actually a way to prove to her that death was closer to her at any moment she stopped accepting death. It was a way to explain that many accepted, or just neglected Thanatos, the living death itself for many other reasons. And not every single one of them could "see" how Eros was included inside them. It was a way to show how actually not accepting Thanatos would even bring itself closer to others, just because they were so obsessed with life itself.
She knew she had to accept it, not only to see Eros, but to accept Thanatos. That is why I implied, "Eros is under the shadow of Thanatos".
For the final parts of the story, I wanted to beautifully and poetically connect everything she felt to the people's view. About how they see her as an "Angel", yet some see her as a "Devil". Portraying how time affects her presence in life and that no matter how she lives, she is going to be "stuck" with other people's ideals and time perceptions. I wanted to show how she had to keep expanding, to keep on moving above the sea like an angel so that she wouldn't be crushed by the reality of others. I wanted her to understand and give up the pure fear-filled emotions she had, so she could understand nature and death itself, so she wouldn't be connected to any fear of others.
That is why at the very end, she says she blames no one. She says she had to do them to keep on living. That death was under her feet. And death always had its grasp on her. Now she would be humbly accepting death and life itself with her entire presence, and no more felt any type of emotion that would stir her away from the actual reality of that, that many feared to even look at.
But now she was staring at it. More precisely, she understood she always had been staring at Thanatos, on every step she took.
And at the very end, to end its very niche and precise, I made her bow in front of death, the very thing she feared at first, but at last humbly accepted to see "Eros" itself.
