She carried around an umbrella by her side every time she stepped outside. Where this habit originated from is unknown, yet the fact still stays — obvious and out of the ordinary. It was black — her umbrella. Any other stranger who would see her out in public would think nothing of it. She would be carrying it around when there was not a single water droplet to be felt falling down from the gray and miserable cotton balls in the sky — it did not matter to her, all that mattered was that nothing was true anymore. She would not accept it — she would not accept that a part of her seized to exist.

It would be a rainy day when she would pick up the black umbrella for the first time. She had gotten it as a gift from her mother. She wondered why it was so plain and black at first, and that is when her mother told her that was her favorite color, and to think of her whenever she held that umbrella.

“This umbrella will shield you from the sorrow of the world, just like I will shield you whenever you need to be shielded,” she’d say, as if knowing what was to come a couple days after those words escaped her dry lips.

She would be walking down the street, covering herself with her wonderful umbrella, when all of the sudden the umbrella would hit the ground and she would switch to sprint past black crows, their feathers flying past her fire-colored hair, and huge puddles that would later get her sick — all after she recieved a phone call, and the only words she would recall from that moment in time were “Mother,” and “dead.”

Why was she not aware of her condition? Was she that oblivious? Ignorant? She could not stop blaming herself and eventually convinced herself that she was the reason why she could never hug her mother again, never feel her heartbeat and her warm palms.

She was soaking wet when she met her mother’s corpse, and soaking wet during her mother’s funeral — she had left her umbrella somewhere out there in the streets after all. And now that umbrella was all she wanted.

After the funeral, she was walking in an open field with white flowers everywhere, and she prayed for her mother to be back, standing in front of her once again. She closed her eyes and let out a laugh, aware of the fact that she was being quite silly, before opening them again and having her smile fade slowly as she came to realize what it was that she was witnessing before her eyes, just a mile away. It was the umbrella, the plain and black umbrella. So many questions were on her mind, in the back of her head, yet the only thing she prioritized was getting to that umbrella before it was gone just as fast as her mother was. When she got to the umbrella, she could not cry, she could not speak, or think. She picked it up and firmly closed her eyes, trying to imagine her mother giving her the umbrella for the first time. Just then, there was a gust of wind, and then another, until there was a harmony of soothing and pleasant whirls that brushed against her pale and fair skin. She swung her arms open, with the umbrella still in her right hand, simply taking in the final gift from her mother. She breathed in and out, slowly cracking a smile. She had this urge to dance, to show her mom that she will be okay. But she knew that would be lying, and her mother taught her not to lie.

How could she leave the umbrella home? Her mother, home by herself? No, she had to carry it around with her at all times. She needed to be shielded, and her mother promised to do so.