thoughts concerning umbrellas

The city is inhabited by all colours of umbrellas. They are dancing around the streets, some gracefully bobbing up and down with haste, others stretching themselves out of their own skins. Some pirouette like spinning tops. Some stand awkwardly in badly-formed lines.

An unwanted umbrella lies discarded against the parking meter. He is broken and desolate. His life has ended here, in the gutter. His world has been flooded with clouds. What a terrible way to see the end of the world: Sideways. Saturated. And blocked with leaves.

Umbrellas are embracing the entourage of white dresses and grey suits. Grey suits for a grey-coloured day. They lovingly sheltering us with nothing in return: We are wary of the sniper who crouches in the heavens. Perched, bursting, ready. He has his eye on the target.

Man. Under tree. Without Umbrella. Reading. He looks up at me as our eyelines rotate around each other. As my stare peels away from his, I hear the deep racket of swift gunshots. I don’t look back, but I know he has been riddled with bullets. The blood soaks his hair and drips off the end of his nose. The pages become soggy and illegible. A soft grey grenade hovers several hundred feet above his head.

Did you know umbrellas are claustrophobic? Three are arguing under the narrow alcove of a boutique shop. Stabbings occur frequently here. Their limbs entangle each other in confined spaces. They haven’t learned to live peacefully alongside each other yet.

Some umbrellas are unsure of their direction in life. They are fickle minded. They thrust themselves this way one minute and that way the next. They tear themselves inside out with their indecision. If they’re not careful they too will end up in the gutter. There will be no headstone to mark their place after they are swept away with the storm waters.

Umbrellas are Hollywood stars! They appear in numerous films. They receive solos on stage. They are flattered with aerial shots. Lights, camera, action! Umbrellas know glitz and glam. Until they end up in the gutter.

We’re not that different from umbrellas, actually, which is why for the most part we get along and why sometimes we have conflicts as siblings and best friends do. We too are disposable. We don’t last forever. And someday we also will end up in the gutter, cold and mutilated, our bodies misshapen from when we first existed and battered by the weather. Like umbrellas we are only useful for so long.

The difference between umbrellas and us? We get looked at funny if we dance in the streets and we’re less likely to make it on Hollywood sets.