principles of umbrella management
by agnes mcDonald
[ one of our short short story winners ]

Doris had given her husband Hugo an umbrella when he retired.It was a stylish charcoal brown rather than the ubiquitous black umbrella he would have preferred. A pelican in flight, the handle had been carved from mahogany and took advantage of whorls of the grain.

Doris had been drawn to the careful texture of the pelican’s wing feathers but even more by the webbed feet which curved under the bird and seemed strangely long for the body. The bird’s grotesque pouch indicated a ravenous appetite for prey. Her husband would not notice these subtleties, she knew this. Life to him was strictly meat and potatoes.

To Hugo, the handle was a handle on an umbrella which was only an umbrella, a utility to be left somewhere he couldn’t remember. To Hugo, it was silly to own such an item and to be bothered by dependency on it. He carried very little in his pockets or in the slim attache’ case he used only on rare occasions. He aimed on travelling light, as well as adopting a way of dressing that made him blend in with the crowd. So as not to be noticed by aquaintances on the street, he would cross to the other side, turning his head to peruse the high-end boulangeries and awninged cafes.

Her husband puzzled over why Doris had given him this obviously expensive gift he might leave somewhere, if not lose altogether. Why didn’t she just get a cheap one at the Walgreen’s down the block? Or why did she get him one at all, saddling him with an object so distinctive, and to add insult to injury, have his name engraved upon it. He suspected that she was becoming a little doty. Hugo couldn’t admit to himself that when he was carrying an umbrella, he fantasized that he could thread every third person on the sidewalk on the point at the end. Realistically, he would be able to inflict this only on very small people. But like most of us, Hugo’s fantasies were not realistic.

And Doris wondered about her motivation. Yet it was her nature to act first and justify later Abercrombie and Fitch had been offering a bonus with each umbrella over one hundred dollars, a brass name plate engraved in the store with the user’s name affixed to the base of the handle. She smiled to herself as she included a gift card and hastily inscribed the message, “May you walk through the raindrops and never get wet.” Maybe she had made up this wish or she had read it somewhere in her frequent excursions into the world of print. Doris intended this sentiment as a sort of plea that the universe would protect Hugo against the slings and arrows of adversity.

But after her glow of selfsatisfaction had worn off, she suspected that this phrase might carry with it a smudge, a sly suggestion that all was not well between the well-wisher and the recipient, an allusion to the umbrella carrier’s superior-to-thou brand of self-debasement.

The best justification Doris could find to explain to Hugo her impetuous purchase was, “But dear, I have so few people in my life that I can be sentimental with.” As for Hugo, he felt uncomfortable being among a few people. “Well, why don’t you get a small dog, or even a cat? Or perhaps a bird?,” he teased. Or was he teasing? And so when Hugo said nothing to reassure her, Doris thought that she might be on the lookout for a boy friend, someone who could feel sentimental back. And she smiled to notice how quickly she was tempted by her own fantasy.

Agnes McDonald’s publications include Four NC Women Poets, 1982; Quickest Door, Smallest Room, 1992, Eight Cranes on Tuesday, 2002, all books of poems. She has collected and edited excerpts from contemporary Southern women’s journals in Journey Proud and has published widely in North Carolina literary magazines.