The broken umbrella

It looked alright when you strapped up the spokes with Sellotape on the kitchen table. The wet glass and sodden garden warning you that you wouldn’t get away with wrapping your scarf over your head that day. A gratifying sense of prescient efficiency constructed above your head as you stepped out: an organised person today. Like that smart lady with the briefcase across the road.

Your self-satisfaction began to sag with the dark material five minutes later. The once taut circle collapsed into an angry, jagged exclamation bubble: “AARRGH”.

Never mind, just turn it – like so – and no one would notice. Half-way across the bridge, the wind picked up and turned the lop-sided frame inside out. Gazes of envy from those unprotected heads turned to surprise and then pity.

Holding it tight with your hand, water dripping down your coat sleeve, the velcroed strap conducting a wet stream directly on to your new bag (a seemingly malicious act of vandalism), you and your protector were no longer friends. People with whole, unblemished umbrellas striding towards you and past. Making their point. No communion either with the other scuttling figures, whose contraptions were also deformed. Just simple misery.

The chemist, proudly displaying its sweet-wrappered waterproof wares, appeared like a mirage through the silver rods pounding the pavement. A few moments later, you re-emerged onto the street, proud owner of a new umbrella, galvanised, reinforced and guaranteed. The old one stubbed out, abandoned in a rubbish bin.