My Mind's Volcano: PG-13 for nudity and implied sexual content sans swearing

Please comment on this story. Its for a writing group and I am going to correct it myself tomorrow before submitting it. Tell me how you feel about the anglo-farsi writing. And yes, this story is based on some true events. However, the entire story isn't true and I'm not male.

Persian Paradox:

Dark swallowed impatiently, stamping his right, black combat boot on the cement while he waited for his mother to exit the house. A faint breeze kissed the green trees behind him, its magic dying away as the summer sun laughed maniacally upon his forehead. The scorched grass surrounding the house did little to lessen the sun's intensity -- it only served as a reminder of the favoritism mother nature showed her thriving offspring. In front of the grass lay a cement driveway, upon which Dark was standing with his arms folded across his tight, black shirt. Some straggling pansies half bitten by hungry dear grudgingly stood at attention along the cream base of the red brick house. Dark smiled wistfully, ignoring the pitiful air of desperation and failure emanating from the flowers to stare at the last remaining light in the second story. Supposing his mother was still inside, Dark walked toward the back of the house where a row of yellow forsythias were growing sicker with each passing year. Another ephemeral breeze stirred the flowers out of their stupor like a lesbian forced out of hiding in the Middle East. The flowers glared at Dark as they moved, somehow blaming him for causing the torturous breeze. Dark reached forward, his hand casting a small shadow across one of the few budding forsythias. A flower disappeared, a trickle of yellow blood seeping down Dark's hand a few seconds later. Dark opened his hand, watching lazy drops of flower and nectar bubble down his forearm and on to his black pants like artificial butter.

"Grandpa? Grandpa, whats wrong?" Shouted nine year old Dark in a childish soprano. Dark had run onto the gray, cement patio surrounding his grandfather's rainbow garden as soon as he heard the startled cry he assumed belonged to his grandfather. Within easy walking distance of the garden, Dark spotted his grandfather's balding, cotton white head behind a struggling banana bush. Ye dafeh gole kahgaziah ke dore bababozorgeh Dark boodan az khejalat dar yek bad-e-koochak agab kesheedan. The flowers bent their heads in shame, struggling to leave the space around the short, mocha skinned old man empty out of deference to his pain. Failing once the wind died down, the flowers abandoned their deferential, bent selves, returning to their naturally upright positions. Dark chose that moment to glance at a small pottery shed full of hoes and watering cans where an array of potted plants stood in humble servitude to Dark's grandfather. Kneeling down before the wooden edge of the garden, Dark joined mother nature in assuming a respectful pose. Dark allowed his pale hands to drop alongside his navy jeans, ignoring the heavy clump of his shoulder length, red hair that dangled before his eyes. It took a few additional seconds for Dark's grandfather to turn away from the object at which he was looking. However, When Dark's grandfather turned his brown eyes toward the garden's large, arched white gate, Dark noticed a hint of confusion leaking from them.

"Grandpa, whats wrong?" Dark repeated, hoping like all children hope that asking the same question multiple times would get him an answer. Like most children, Dark was not disappointed when his grandfather placed his hands, wrinkled and spotted like the skin of a rotten, brown pear, on the portion of his striped, blue pajama pants that covered his knees. With a grunt betraying his old, decrepit state Dark's grandfather stood, carefully adjusting the short sleeves of his white, cotton undershirt. Dark remained patiently on the ground, knowing that his grandfather had learned to preface the rare moments he spoke with an elaborate display of movement befitting the eight three years he had been alive. It was only when Dark's father had his two mahogany, horses head canes in his hands that he began speaking, moving just faster than a sloth toward the cement patio where Dark was kneeling.

"One of my favorite flowers died today."

Dark's eyes widened in true curiosity. "But how can you have a favorite flower? Aren't all flowers pretty?"

"Have you ever heard of the Persian Paradox?" Dark's Grandfather rested his hands stiffly on his canes, struggling to mount the low stairs leading to the patio.

"No." A small, feminine hand, Dark's hand, reached out to touch his grandfather's arm. Together, the two of them cast a deformed shadow of themselves across the stairs. Dark turned around to view the shadow, watching his grandfather's ancient, historic form waver hesitantly over his shadow, which was firmly and securely moving forward.

"One existed, one did not exist and no one other than god existed. This is a phrase all Iranian children are familiar with. It starts every story." Dark turned back to face the white, marble wall of the approaching house, ears tuned to his grandfather's story.

"Now this story includes two people who are always fighting. Some say they are twins and are of the same mother. One represents everything bad and one represents everything good. And both control vast ideological territory which is not compatible with the others' beliefs. For example, if you are thinking good thoughts, the bad thoughts die. If you are thinking bad thoughts, the good thoughts die until the bad thoughts leave. And thus, the two twins would fight for supremacy to see if good or bad would win. Neither one of the twins realized that they couldn't win because a victory for one twin meant that the other had been the winner but was now the loser. They didn't realize that their fighting brought the people who had witnessed their battles together. And those people were the people who grew to accept the coexistence of both good and bad in the world. But there were some people who refused to acknowledge the foolishness of taking sides. Those people took sides and stubbornly saw only good or bad in the world. From these people came either an extreme sense of despair and disgust with the world or the hope truly happy use to get through the day. Each side also gets rewards. For people who feel that the world is genuinely bad, they accept death. But those who have hope don't like death. Death isn't a reward when you have hope. For this flower who cannot speak, it is impossible to know if it wanted to die or was forced to die. But that doesn't stop other people from seeing things as part of the beliefs they posses. Even if this flower, like the twins, fights amongst itself because it can't decide what beliefs to have doesn't mean that I can't like it."

"So you like the flower because it can't be anything but a flower to you?"

"Dark." A deep laugh like a broken bugle burst out of Dark's grandfather's mouth. "If the flower were only a flower to me, I'd not water it every day knowing that my knees don't like the feeling of creamy dirt underneath them." Dark ran forward to open the door, running back to his grandfather's side to guide him into the house. Once Dark's grandfather was inside he turned around and pointed to the garden. "See, look at that dying flower. It was a completely different being the other day. But now it is dying and it can't help showing a bad shadow of its former self to the world."

Dark's eyes closed, allowing him to imagine the flowers thoughts as its current self vacated its body. A shudder traveled down Dark's shoulder, reminding him of the sudden feeling of self preservation that had taken over his mind when his family had discovered his secret. At that moment it had taken all of Dark's self control to resist trampling his grandfather's revered garden. In the months following Dark's grandfather's death, the flowers began shedding their former selves, passing on to the graveyard they had created for themselves within his turbulent heart. Although it was now several years after Dark's grandfather had passed away, Dark still cursed the garden's shadow as one of the heaviest burdens he was carrying into his future. Each flower's gentle smile during its calm demise hovered above Dark's shoulders, fragrant warriors of bigotry and expulsion. The almost human sympathy with which Dark's family watered the garden every week further reminded Dark of his family's ties to each other. Much like a psychiatrist, the garden's feeble attempt at growth fueled Dark's family's desire to rid themselves of all adulterating influences. In due fashion Dark had, like the forsythia pulsating weakly in his hand, been the first weed expiated from the garden. Dark opened his shadowy green eyes, taking what remained of the Forsythia plant and shoving it haphazardly back onto its stem. The flower slouched slowly over the edge of the stem. One half of the flower seemed momentarily reluctant to leave the stem while the other half bravely accepted the demise coming its way, dragging its chary half down with it. A wave of humiliation washed over Dark's face, causing him to pick up the flower once it reached the ground. Squishing the flower with his toe, Dark began pacing back and forth like a flower swaying in the throes of death. Dark couldn't believe he had waited so long to tackle the shadows preventing him from crossing the no man's land separating him and his family. For the third time that day, another breeze chose that moment to weave through Dark's red, hip length hair. Was it true that he still had no idea how the two most combatant shadows fighting to control his world had merged without accepting each others' presence? Could it be that he would never see this forsythia as anything more than a flower learning to exist harmoniously with mother nature? If so, why had he waited to long to accept his given role in society?

Unable to stare at the yellow bigotry in front him, Dark stepped back on to the driveway like he was fleeing a taboo self. If flowers were just flowers to him then why was he so disgusted by their mere presence?

"Stop! Show yourself!" Dark yelled suddenly, unable to control an urge to scream. The shout left his lips like a missile departing from a launcher, causing the light on the second floor to go out. Dark turned toward the flowers lining the front of the house and leered. "You look like nothing more than a rainbow garden of skulls to me!" Dark laughed, running forward with sudden purpose. It was no accident that the flowers he was running toward were his late grandfather's favorite kind, gole kagazi. After all, it is human nature for people to surround themselves with the objects that remind them most of the shadows they left behind. "I don't recognize you anymore!" Dark yelled at the flowers as if he had lost all sense of decorum, the words leaving his lips in a jumbled gasp. A sliver of saliva shot down Dark's cheek. Dark wiped it off absently, relishing the almost human crunch that squelched from the flowers beneath his feet. "Grandpa. Your garden. It died." Dark came to a stop against a small rose tree, wrapping his slender arms around it.

The sun rays, which had been absolutely brutal earlier that morning, suddenly lessened their intensity. A burst of dark clouds and cool breezes replaced them, bring with them the refreshing, wild smell of rain. Along with the sudden change in weather, Dark felt a cardinal urge to see his boyfriend. He felt like celebrating.