I am an umbrella.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? An object that opens and closes, meant to shield from the rain. But behind the surface — the stretched fabric, the ribs that fold and extend — there's an invisible life, a silent burden. Because to protect isn't just to keep water off the skin. To protect is to bear the weight of the world that hides beneath me.
When I find myself open, I'm a temporary roof, a shelter against the liquid chaos of the sky. But how many times have I wondered: am I truly protecting? Or merely delaying the inevitable? The rain, no matter how hard I try, always finds a way. It drips through the edges, soaks the shoes, seeps into thoughts.
And maybe the rain isn't the enemy.
Maybe the storm is necessary so that those beneath me can understand what it means to be alive. Because life is like rain: sometimes it wets, sometimes it stings, sometimes it burns.
I've learned that being protection isn't enough. I must be a witness.
A witness to the anguish whispered in the silence of wet streets, to the tears disguised by rain, to the internal battles fought within quiet hearts.
I saw a man in a suit standing on the sidewalk, his gaze lost in the storm. He held me, but it was as if the weight he carried inside was stronger than my fabric and metal. He didn't need protection from the water — he needed protection from himself.
I saw a woman clutching the umbrella tightly, as if trying to stop her soul from unraveling in the invisible storm she carried. The world didn't see her, but I felt the tremble in her hands, the fragility hidden behind her wet coat.
I wonder: what is the true purpose of an umbrella? Just to be a barrier? Or to be a mirror of what the world hides?
I choose to believe in the latter.
Because there's a melancholic beauty in accepting that we can't stop the rain. What we can do is learn to live with it. To open up, even knowing that getting wet is inevitable. To open up to feel, to grow.
I've been forgotten, thrown aside, stepped on. I've been opened to protect someone who never even noticed me. I've been the last hope against a downpour — and also the object that reveals solitude.
But each time I open, I choose to be more than a simple object. I choose to be a symbol of the silent resistance that lives in each of us — the humble gesture of facing the storm, even without guarantees, even without knowing what comes next.
I am the umbrella that has learned to feel.
That understands that protection is not about denying the rain, but about accepting that life is made of storms — both inside and out.
And maybe, just maybe, the next time you open me, you'll understand that you are not alone beneath this fabric. That I carry with you the drops that cleanse the soul and nourish hope.
Because in the end, there is no rain that doesn't bring rebirth.