It's raining today in Minneapolis.
I've been writing all morning, and have gotten the desire to come down from my fifth floor apartment and go for a walk. I dive into bowels of my closet to search for my umbrella. It doesn't take long for me to emerge from its bottommost corner with the black, compacted device in my hands. The tags from TJ Maxx are still attached and I remove them before opening it's ribcage beneath the airy ceiling of the studio. I've never really been superstitious.
Back in February, Susan Orlean wrote a piece for the New Yorker about the umbrella and its prevailingly faulty design. I think of it as the smell of newly waterproofed nylon invades my nostrils. I collapse the device and hope the wind isn't strong this afternoon. Orlean is right, after all. Everyone knows the slightest wind can knock an umbrella inside out and even if it doesn't, there exists an updraft that wets the front of the thighs making anyone uncomfortable upon reaching his or her destination. And this afternoon, because I have no particular destination, should be especially damp.
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