I agree it’s thought-provoking, and it is well-written. I think the leaves are okay because no metaphor is going to be perfect and that one did fit very well. My only problem is with the dialogue, and it reinforces Dave’s advice to me once. Your characters are making long speeches. Since they’re not explaining quantum mechanics, I don’t think the exchange, the give-and-take, is realistic. It’s not bad, it just sounds slightly stilted to me. And nothing happened while they spoke, the dialogue is alone in a void, that adds to the speech effect.
As far as story-line, well, if someone were to think of a story idea about a pink-and-purple polka-dotted cow who decided to take up boxing, they could rest assured it will have already been done a hundred times over. It’s a cool theme. No, it’s not new, nothing is completely new, but you handled it with your voice in your style, and that’s what makes it individual.
Did I know how it was going to end halfway through the third paragraph? Of course. But the trouble with foreshadowing is if you make it the slightest bit too explicit, 99% of your readers will come up to you saying it was way too obvious, and if you try to edge it just a tiny bit toward being more obscure, 99% will complain that they didn’t understand the story and it was too obscure. I think to error on the side of clearer foreshadowing is safe; because people enjoy knowing what’s going to happen, as long as they don’t know every step of the way. I think you pitched it at the right level.
To sum it all up, I think it was well-written. I think you handled a couple of tough things well, and the only thing I think needed work was the dialogue.