Umbrella’s. Lines and lines of back shields protecting the owner from the oncoming downpour. Rows of weary walkers, sick of the rain. Sick of the cold. Sick of living in day out routines. No one breaks the routine. My umbrella is slightly blue, slightly broken with a slightly twisted handle. It was the only one I could find. I don‘t have a jacket that will offer enough protection from the cold so I walk with bitterly folded arms, holding close whatever warmth I can gather. This is life, everyday. Till the rain stops at least.

That day I was late, extremely so. I was engulfed in matter insignificant to me now to the extent that I was running to catch up with the others in their rows and rows of black, blue and occasional poka-dot umbrellas. That day she was late too. Across the road in the misty haze was a strikingly real visual uprising. A red umbrella hung lazily over the girls’ slight form, as if it thought it was no different to the others. She herself walked with a polite, reserved pace. As if she thought she wasn’t late. As if she believed she didn’t have to catch up with the others. I almost called out to her, to tell her to hurry up, to run with me to the others. But I was so timid, so scared that the girl who stood across the street wouldn’t answer back that I reserved myself to running along with the rest.

Over the next week I looked eagerly out the window from my seat at school and at my window at home for the girl in red. Such a rarity, such a silent but valuable protest intrigued me. Through the black and the blue and the occasional poka-dot there was this striking red, roaming, transporting the past’s unjust efforts to change the black and blue and occasional poka-dot. To break the flow. I wished to see it again. Such a pretty red.

Weeks later I forgot all about the red umbrella and its owner, I once again fitted naturally into the flow of black, blue and occasional poka-dot of society. I was part of the ever-moving line, another one of the miles of umbrellas that engulfed the road. Till I fell ill. For days I sat in bed and watched that line moving onwards, always progressing with or without my help. Every day. Until one day as I retired after seeing the last of the black, blue and occasional poka-dot umbrella pass out of sight, I happened to see a reflection of something peculiar across the road. Strikingly visual and silent. A roaming entity. The girl and her red umbrella.

She was late, as she was so many months ago. I opened my window and hung my head out as far as I would dare to without falling. And I shouted, finally I shouted to her the words I should have all those months ago. I shouted that she was going to be late. She looked up, dazed I suppose. And said only two words.

“I know”

Miraculously my illness was gone the next day and I once again joined the line of black, blue and occasional poka-dot of umbrellas. But a little later now, looking out for the girl in red. And every day I became later and later, waiting for the girl in red. Till she came. But by then I was so late I had almost lost the line of black, blue and occasional poka-dot umbrellas. My own tattered and slightly twisted blue one was behind all others, its missing presence unnoticed and very swiftly replaced.

The red umbrella approached me from across the street. And from below the hood of the umbrella the girl shouted to me that I was going to be late.

“I know” was the only reply I could think of. It made her smile. Which in turn made me smile too. I don’t think I’d ever smiled in the line of black, blue and occasional poka- dot of umbrellas before.

In the oncoming months of rain, a build up was beginning beside the girl in red. Groups of black, blue and occasional poka-dot umbrella danced around her, following her example. They bleached their umbrellas white and walked late with her. But I always walked across the road from her, not out of reverence or tameness but because that was the way it had always been.

Meanwhile the higher ups on their thrones noticed, noticed a change in direction, they noticed the girl with her red umbrella and her small army or white followers. She cared not for them, not for her followers and not for me. From what I could see the only thing she truly cherished was her bright red umbrella. Such a pretty red.

The higher ups rose from their thrones and strode out with their pitch black umbrellas, a confrontation, and a conflict of opposing ideas. The girl in red stood strong as black and white clashed while the line of black, blue and occasional poka-dot still moved on. Umbrellas ripped and precious red dripped onto the innocent pavement. Valiant colours perished under the black swoop of umbrellas and behind my useless and tattered blue umbrella I stood and watched all the scarlet truth unravel before my eyes. On that day white umbrella fragments limped slashed on the pavement, defeated. On that day the black umbrellas walked away, grinning with undeniable pleasure. On that day the girl in red fell and spouted the most beautiful red of all. All while I stood on the other side of the street.

A group of black, blue and occasional poka-dot umbrellas crowded round a hole in the ground. I stood across from them, waiting for them to disperse. Across the road, where I will travel once more in the line of black, blue and occasional poka-dot umbrella. It might take me a while but I’ll catch up. And once I’m in the flow I will forget all about the girl in red. Her sacrifice, my guilt and the unjust events that happened that day will be worked out of my body. Till then I will go over how obscene it all was and play the events out in a blissfully different direction in my mind while I remember that red. That pretty red. That red that fell onto the coffin as the last umbrella fell.

My slightly blue, slightly broken and slightly twisted umbrella no longer hangs over my head. After all the rain has stopped. And soon the sun will emerge.