A Purple Umbrella

A little girl stood
On a rainy street,
Safe beneath her umbrella.
She wandered the city,
One end to another,
Searching within the storm.

"He's always here somewhere,"
She said to herself,
As lightning split horizons.
She had long black hair
And dark blue eyes;
Red skirt, red coat, black boots.
Her purple umbrella
Lay light in her hand,
As she walked with patient purpose.

The city held no traces
Of whom she meant to find;
And so she popped
From here to there,
To walk upon the moors.
Through the heath, she wandered
The same as before,
And found him by a cliff.

He sat there dangling
His feet from the edge,
Staring straight ahead;
Not brooding, nor sulking,
But simply lost in thought.
A man dressed in black,
His head all uncovered;
The rain fell on his hair,
But he didn't care.

The girl came up beside him,
Her umbrella held as always.
"I have no ideas,"
She confessed to the man.
"I don't know what to write,
Though I know I surely must."

"Because I asked you?"
He asked, staring forward.

"Pretty much," she admitted,
Squinting in the haze.
Perhaps if she looked hard enough,
She could see what he was seeing.

"There's the problem,"
He sighed as he stood.
She was half his size,
More or less.
He stroked her hair
With two fingers, then three,
As she glanced up to see him
From the corner of her eyes.

"Why is that the problem?"
She asked with clear distress.

"You shouldn't write for me,"
He explained in soothing tones.
"You should write for mostly you.
Don't write to please me,
Don't write with such aims;
Write your emotions,
Just write what you feel."

The child blinked,
And looked right at him.
"Why are you out in the rain?"

The man glanced about him,
Cast his eyes up and down,
Then simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Truth told, I don't know."

"I thought you knew everything,"
The child said crossly.

"I learn," he said.
"The same as you, sweetie."

And then he shoved her
Off the cliff.

Now why would that happen?
The girl thought as she fell,
Still grasping her umbrella,
Still wrestling with her doubts.

A sudden shift...

One of his arms
Held her tightly against him,
While the other took the umbrella.
They were floating now,
Down and down,
Aloft upon the wind.

"You shoved me,"
She accused him.

He shook his head. "No.
This is your dream,
Your fantasy.
You know I would never do that,
Yet in your mind it happened.
Do you think I would push you
All the way to the edge...?"

She gripped him harder,
Feeling unsettled.
It was her dream,
She realized now;
And she could rewind it,
Rewrite it, fix that glitch and error.
Yet as many times
As she replayed that scene,
Some part of her mind
Refused to change it.

"You shoved me,"
She whispered.

"Only in your head."
He offered the umbrella,
For her to hold instead.

"You're the one who makes us float,"
She said in rising fear.

"Your dream," he reminded.
"And sometimes, princess,
We have to float for ourselves."

He gave her the umbrella,
And then he disappeared.

At first she fell,
For what felt like forever,
Plummeting fast as rock.
She shook the umbrella,
Frantic and panicked,
As the ground grew ever closer.

My dream, she thought desperately,
Shutting her eyes real hard.
I write my own rules here...
I make myself float...

And then she was floating,
Aloft on the wind.

When her feet touched the earth,
She landed soft and calm.
He was waiting there to greet her,
Standing by a stream.

He gestured toward it,
Where rain wracked the water.
"What do you see here?"

She tilted her head,
Without inspiration.
"Um...water?"

"More specific,"
He said dryly.

"Water falling...
Into water?"

"Better." He smiled.
"Water adding unto water...
What do you think of that, hm?"

"It seems sort of silly,"
Observed the girl.

"Not in the least," he replied.
But then he began to flicker,
A static sound emitting,
As electric light coursed up and down
His body here and there.

"You're flickering," she told him,
Feeling somewhat scared.

"I see that." He frowned.
"Why would I...?"

Before he could finish speaking,
His form flashed and altered,
As he took on the shape
Of other men she'd known,
Faster and faster, again and again...

Lightning split horizons,
And a monster rose before her.

It was enormous, a hulking mass
Of seeping shadows, yellow eyes,
Horrid fangs and twisted claws.
It loomed above her, roaring like thunder,
Acid dripping from frightful jaws.

She froze in horror, mouth agape,
The umbrella stiff in her hand.

The beast came closer,
Footfalls booming,
Eyes bulging from rounded sockets.
It kept on roaring,
It went on drooling,
Claws extended outward.

The girl stumbled back,
Shaking her head,
Trembling with all her fears.
She gripped the umbrella,
Squeezed it so hard,
Unable to scream or cry...

Your dream,
His voice echoed.
Just float...

Her eyes narrowed, determined,
As she charged with her umbrella.
She whacked it once,
She thwacked it twice,
And the monster gave a moan.

It fell to the earth
With a thumping crash,
With a whimper of pain and hurt.
The girl raised her umbrella
For a final blow,
But something...made her...stop...

The creature was weeping
Tears from yellow eyes,
Curled up and quivering,
Staring up at her in fear.

The umbrella fell from her hands.

She knelt next to the creature,
And lay a hand on its arm.
It flinched, still crying,
Shaking in the rain.

She wrapped herself around it,
As best as she knew how.
She wanted to make it warmer...
She wanted to be its friend...

"I'm sorry I attacked you,"
She said in a soft little voice.
"You weren't even trying
To hurt me, were you?
It was only in my head..."

They lay there a while,
Till both drifted off...
Down in other dreamworlds,
Beyond the scope of space...

And when the girl awoke
In the dream she'd abandoned,
No monster lay in her arms.
Instead she found a baby,
Wrapped in woolen white.

A sudden shift...

And she stood on the cliff
With the man again,
Staring out at a cloudless sky.

"So what have you learned?"
He asked her then.

She folded her umbrella,
And tossed it off the cliff.
She plopped down by his side,
Dangling her legs like he did.
"How to see what you see,"
Was the answer she finally gave.

And then she woke,
And began to write.