By DARRIUS ESTIGOY
Staff Writer
Kimberly frowned at the dreadful situation she found herself stuck in. She was stuck in rainy weather. Rain is an environmental phenomenon wherein water falls from the sky. It’s typically associated with emotions of sadness and depression. That is not to suggest that Kimberly was depressed, but she wasn’t exactly the giddiest person at the moment. She trudged on steadily through the never-ending stream of gloom from above and headed towards her apartment. As the rain soaked her wet, making a mockery of her rain coat which had tried so hard to keep her dry, she cursed the city for closing the subways anytime there was the slightest possibility of flooding in the tunnels. She stared into the water-soaked sidewalk ahead and noticed a male figure approaching her. He seemed to have forgotten his umbrella.
Jim loved the rain. He never used an umbrella for himself, but he kept one hanging on his coat if he ran into anyone who needed it. He loved the feeling of wet on his skin, it made him feel like an evolutionary superior to a cold-blooded lizard, always constrained beneath the heat of a lamp. But at the same time, he felt an inferior to a fish, drowning whenever he tried to breathe the falling water. Taking a less-than-urgent stroll along the sidewalk, he saw a woman approaching him. She didn’t have an umbrella and looked rather miserable. Jim figured he ought to be nice and give her the umbrella. He took the umbrella from his coat and pushed the button to open it. He’d hand it to her when their paths crossed.
She was wrong, the man did have an umbrella. He just chose to open it in the middle of walking through rain instead of in shelter, like a sane man would have done. They were on a collision course towards one another. She looked downwards attempting to drive away any potential advances from the stranger.
He noticed the slight tilt on her face, she was probably trying to keep the rain out of her face. He sped up his pace to meet her quicker.
She looked on with slight distress as the odd man came closer and closer to her. It was inevitable that their paths would cross. But it didn’t have to be so sudden. And he certainly didn’t have to speed up the process. That said, she admitted that she might have been a bit too assumptious when it came to how odd this person was. There could have been a million reasons why a sane gentleman would open an umbrella in the rain and at least three of those reasons don’t end in “insanity”.
He stopped walking. He was right in front of her.
She stopped walking. He was right in front of her.
They were staring right at each other, protected from the elements by an umbrella held aloft.
“Would you like an umbrella?” He asked her politely.
“I would like one,” she replied, “but  you’d get awful wet.”
“I’ll be alright,” he brought the handle closer to her, “Please take the umbrella.”
The umbrella traded hands. “If you insist.”
He continued walking on, his hair pelted with the downpour.
She continued walking on, noticing his hair had been pelted with the downpour.
They continued walking away from each other. Their paths never crossed again.