The Tale of the Hobo Umbrella
Jan. 6th, 2009 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penfield"The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
So I was on the Metro today, minding my own business, absentmindedly nodding my head to the incessant beats of Fatboy Slim & Wildchild's "Renegade Master", when I noticed an umbrella just laying there on the floor.
Or, more accurately, an umbrella fragment. Its telescopic shaft was broken in half, the handle inexplicably missing, perhaps having rolled under a seat somewhere or holstered as a shiv. The umbrella part of the umbrella rested upside-down in full blossom, as if left to dry, though its structural integrity had been compromised; many of the thin aluminum girders were broken or bent out of shape, almost certainly rendering the umbrella practically unusable. The cheap black polyester webbing was tattered, frayed in spots and lightly stained with a mysterious crusty-looking brown substance.
This was the disabled homeless veteran of umbrellas.
At first I thought it belonged to one of my fellow riders, pressed into emergency service or even lately ravaged by the unexpectedly cold and wet morning weather, and could only be rested in its collapsed state. But the passengers nearest the item seemed to disavow it with their dismissive postures and sidelong glances; with each shuffle of the subway car their legs recoiled, as if avoiding an open syringe. One by one they departed the car, leaving it behind.
Someone had clearly abandoned this umbrella. And despite its obvious functional uselessness -- not to mention its hazardous position on the floor of a moving train -- nobody could be bothered to pick it up and dispose of it properly. Regretfully, at my stop, I declined to remove it myself. (I did not want to go near the crusty-looking brown stuff. I'm just getting over a cold.)
I left it, and it left me wondering: what will happen to it now. Maybe some good samaritan or sanitation worker will give it a proper burial, perhaps considering its long journey or perhaps not, while tossing it into a dumpster with the stray newspapers and food wrappers and other discarded rubbish. But what if nobody throws it away, and the train simply reaches the end of the line and turns back on a return journey, back and forth. Will it be there when I head home? Will it stay there forever? Is it stuck to the floor?
What if there are thousands of hobo umbrellas, used and discarded, riding trains back and forth every day? Once fresh and new, so full of utility and ready to brave the rain and sunshine, they are now consigned to this endlessly depressing coda.
It's almost enough to make me pray for precipitation.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
So I was on the Metro today, minding my own business, absentmindedly nodding my head to the incessant beats of Fatboy Slim & Wildchild's "Renegade Master", when I noticed an umbrella just laying there on the floor.
Or, more accurately, an umbrella fragment. Its telescopic shaft was broken in half, the handle inexplicably missing, perhaps having rolled under a seat somewhere or holstered as a shiv. The umbrella part of the umbrella rested upside-down in full blossom, as if left to dry, though its structural integrity had been compromised; many of the thin aluminum girders were broken or bent out of shape, almost certainly rendering the umbrella practically unusable. The cheap black polyester webbing was tattered, frayed in spots and lightly stained with a mysterious crusty-looking brown substance.
This was the disabled homeless veteran of umbrellas.
At first I thought it belonged to one of my fellow riders, pressed into emergency service or even lately ravaged by the unexpectedly cold and wet morning weather, and could only be rested in its collapsed state. But the passengers nearest the item seemed to disavow it with their dismissive postures and sidelong glances; with each shuffle of the subway car their legs recoiled, as if avoiding an open syringe. One by one they departed the car, leaving it behind.
Someone had clearly abandoned this umbrella. And despite its obvious functional uselessness -- not to mention its hazardous position on the floor of a moving train -- nobody could be bothered to pick it up and dispose of it properly. Regretfully, at my stop, I declined to remove it myself. (I did not want to go near the crusty-looking brown stuff. I'm just getting over a cold.)
I left it, and it left me wondering: what will happen to it now. Maybe some good samaritan or sanitation worker will give it a proper burial, perhaps considering its long journey or perhaps not, while tossing it into a dumpster with the stray newspapers and food wrappers and other discarded rubbish. But what if nobody throws it away, and the train simply reaches the end of the line and turns back on a return journey, back and forth. Will it be there when I head home? Will it stay there forever? Is it stuck to the floor?
What if there are thousands of hobo umbrellas, used and discarded, riding trains back and forth every day? Once fresh and new, so full of utility and ready to brave the rain and sunshine, they are now consigned to this endlessly depressing coda.
It's almost enough to make me pray for precipitation.
