The red umbrella
You stand in a very dim light.
Behind you is the door you just pa.s.sed through, floating unnaturally above the ground. Besides you and the door, everything is drowned in absolute, limitless darkness.
It makes you think of a very late winter night, just after it had finished raining. Quiet and wet, without a soul in sight.
It calls to mind a scene of heading back home after a hard day at school or work, and at long last enjoying some peace. The scenery was just as if it came out from those moments, between happiness and happiness, peace and peace, where the anxiety could make you feel sick.
You seem a little confused.
You start walking around the door, but always keep it in the edge of your view, never stray from it too far, almost like you"re bound to it by rope. As if it"s a way to ensure it doesn"t suddenly vanish behind your back. You"re taking safety measures, is all. Or is it just cowardice?
But nothing out of the ordinary happens. The landscape doesn"t change, and there is no movement around you-- only that of your own body.
Relieved, or maybe seeking some change, you dare to walk farther.
In this darkness, without any landmark to help you maintain your sense of direction, you decide to use the door as a reference point, and start moving in a straight line from there. You walk on and on, your shoes becoming caked with mud, your braids swinging slowly back and forth.
At your feet, you can see puddles from time to time. It really must have rained recently, then. You calmly walk on without minding the mud that soaks through your socks and dirties your feet.
The puddles swirl-- a hint at something deeper, as if they held the secrets of your future.
Like that beautiful and clear surface, promising happiness and success.
Or that muddy one, bearing a dark omen of hardship and weariness.
Anyone would say that stepping on a puddle is unpleasant. Everyone knows that bacteria and maggots overflow in muddy water, and the inside of your shoes becomes sopping wet, too. It can be seen as an invitation of poor fortune. At least if the water was clear, you could pose the idea as something optimistic, like cleansing your own heart.
As if still trying to determine your destiny, the puddle"s surface keeps on changing, from clear to muddy, from muddy to clear. In the rippling reflection, you can see a heavy cloud, like the one that hung in the sky above that small room"s balcony, swallowing up the moon"s shine with a malicious sort of glee.
Heedlessly, you step over the puddles. Each time you do it, your body"s reflection is cast on the water. With every step, ripples appear on the surface, warping the image. Even after you leave the puddle behind, those ripples remain, creating eerie distortions.
Your reflection becomes deformed, as if it were made out of modelling clay, and reshapes itself into a couple of well-dressed adults. They walk on by without looking at you, just glaring at each other, like a couple in the middle of a fight.
That distorted image of you, the couple that was made from you, keeps cursing and spitting at each other.
But you don"t notice at all.
You don"t see. You don"t feel. You are not aware.
But, well, that"s just the way you are...
They look like an intimate married couple. One where the closeness allows them to quarrel without needing to hold anything back. Each time the ripples spread, they distort further and further. Until their flabby limbs stretch and their faces crumble, making them look like monsters.
But you do not look at them, and keep walking, farther and farther away.
The water"s surface, like a mirror, reflects all things equally. In truth, the other side of the mirror is a different world altogether. But feigning ignorance, simply by closing your eyes and not listening to anything, you keep going on.
When was it that humans started to look in the mirror? It"s a curious thing to think about. What first made them fuss over things like their hairstyle and the texture of their skin, leading them to create cosmetics and cover their faces with balms and creams? They look at themselves and think, oh, there"s something I"m missing, oh, there"s something I wish I could lose. And they think of ways they could fix those things. And as those faults pile up and up, people go about transforming themselves into something else.
At times it is an act born of deep contemplation, and at times it is a bold yet rashly-made choice. Sometimes it is not their own decision to make at all.
But regardless of the outcome, it is thanks to looking in the mirror that those people are able to view themselves from outside.
You don"t do that, though.
You walk quickly, pretending not to see yourself. But something near your feet suddenly catches your eye, leading your steps to grind to a halt.
Curious, you brush the hair out of your eyes and crouch down to get a closer look at the thing you very nearly tripped over.
It is a small umbrella.
Against the dreary, rain-soaked backdrop, the red color of the umbrella stands out quite a bit. You pick it up without hesitation, and determinedly open it.
Granted, the time to open an umbrella would be when it"s raining, making the action seem laughably pointless. Yet, as if the laws of cause and effect were reversed-- as if you were Alice in the world on the other side of the looking gla.s.s-- without warning, it begins pouring rain.
The rain comes down with a thunderous force, as if it wanted to strike something down.
You hold the umbrella closer to your body in attempt to avoid getting wet.
Rain is a symbol of blessing. It falls from the sky like tears. Tears absorb sadness like a sponge, and then escort that sadness outside of the body. They serve a positive function-- almost like their purpose was to brighten your future.
And in this downpour, the puddle at your feet is like a lump of anxiety, rapidly expanding until it overflows, and then finally becoming blurred, images fading, dissolving. The couple that was inside, along with their unsightly, meaningless quarrel, melt away under the ripples.
You continue heading down the path you decided on, without a clue as to where you"re headed, or any worries as to what you"ll find once you"re there. Any uneasiness is buried deep within your chest, as you lightly twirl the handle of the umbrella between your hands.
With no one to hear, you hum a cheerful tune.