Umbrella

As an old saying this side of the Pond goes: Every man is an island, but even islands could do worse than to go about their lives without an umbrella at hand.


Such a funny little thing called life, innit!
It’s Friday evening. Work done. Some well-deserved off time ahead.
I go to a mall. It's huge. Well, by the local standards- that is.
I'm looking to buy me an umbrella. Just in case. Mid-autumn is upon us, like it or not.
But first I choose to climb all the way to the food court because we all know umbrella-shopping yields far better results when one's belly is not yodelling – rather purring fondly.
So, I grab a beer and some Georgian cheese pie (if it weren't that nastily lukewarm it would have made a half-decent late lunch, much less yucky, too). Suffer through the meal (fine, I must admit the beer wasn't that dreadful.. Why, who am I fooling! Beer is never, ever bad! Period) and ramble away to find what I came for.
The very next moment I see a giant sign staring me right in the eye: BHS
And hope I read it right: British House – not Burmese Home Supplies or something…

My thoughts collide and yank on each other: house, British, home, Britain, island, good people, prawn sandwiches, bowlers, rain, umbrellas! Hallelujah! I'm saved. First time lucky! Yay!

Yeah, right…
No umbrellas. No nothing.
A commiserative (or was it condescending?) look by the assistant. With the thoughts of "this house is as much British as the Holy Roman Empire was all three, they should bloody well get sued for that!" - I'm off to catch the commuter train. It’s Friday, remember?

But before I leave the mall altogether, I decide to give it one last go and peek into another shop on the ground floor. Brand popular but already forgot the name. Which begs the question: is it truly that popular given that a) I did recognise it right away, b) I forgot it faster still and can't remember it for the life of me?
I enter. Cue the usual suspicious eye security are just fond of giving me. I casually approach one of them anyway, oblivious to the apparent unease with a tinge of… is it hostility I sense?
Ask if they have, you know, umbrellas. The guy is apparently tops when it comes to simulating intellectual activity and not an hour passes when he procures an answer: “I don't think so, better off asking about”. Not that I'm excited or anything, but I thank him anyway and give that little polite smile you come to expect from the likes of me.
The shop proper is quite spacious and all I see is shoppers - not staff... Having put the maze of racks, mirrors, piles of shoeboxes, and mannequins behind me, I finally stumble upon the tellers.
I diligently repeat the sole true question occupying the best part of my afternoon.

The teller asks whether it's raining outside, informally.
Startled, I say no I’m here because I need an umbrella.
That's it. I spell it out. Just an umbrella. Just in case.

Luckily they do have umbrellas… But… not of the sort I wanted originally. You know, the proper canes – not the wee baguettes you’d beat the butcher’s mother-in-law with. Meh. Lucky me, I guess?
Time's now starting to get the better of me.. I dash for the exit. It's Friday evening and of course it's packed. Dodging an occasional stroller and tipsy gents in their umpteens, I approach the revolving door, slow as a bloody grape snail.
To my bemusement, it's even more crowded outdoors. People are crammed right next to the entrance. Someone's smoking, others vaping – that godawful fad of today, still others talking at each other – isn’t that the way we get to talk these days? I'm trying to find my way through the crowd. It's as yet an unknown territory for me and I'm running out of time to catch the suburban.
But I do get through… Hop into the metro and off I go, with time to spare.
Above me, drivers anxiously honking to (or yet again – at) each other, cars perilously close, pedestrians getting in the way to create an even bigger conundrum of chaos and confusion.

The streams going above and beyond the sidewalks, drains overflowing.
People, here and there, like tiny ants braving a flood beyond their natural capacity, hop from one little island of relatively shallow ground onto another only to be splattered, head to toe, by a passing car, its impatient break-out born of the said confusion.
It's not raining. It's bucketing! I’m so glad I’ve got my earbuds on, otherwise I’d drown…
Rain. The last day of September. The street-river. Crowds upon crowds of merry revellers, sloggers, tourists, immigrants, prams, monoboards, vapers, cabs, trolleys. And dwarfing all that – water, water everywhere.
Apparently, that was no ordinary teller, but a fortune teller all right!
Now, safe and dry, with that lukewarm pie somewhere inside me and the beer gently putting me at ease, deep down under the bellows of the monstrosity this metropolis is, I can't help smirking.
Who would have thought that I did need an umbrella after all!