Toronto – It is with a heavy heart that I must report a tragedy that has plagued the streets of our fair city. More umbrella’s have perished this past weekend in Toronto than ever in recorded history. I left my apartment last Saturday morning and something just didn’t feel right in the air. I saw a mass of black cloth and plastic in the distance. A shiver ran up and then down and then back up my spine. Is that what I think it is? No, surely not. I cautiously approached the disheveled form. The 14-year old inside of me gave the poor thing a kick. Yep, it was an umbrella, and it was a fresh kill.
I kept walking through the city, and couldn’t help but find more carnage. Carnage everywhere. Oh the humanity! Some poor souls had their plastic wiring bent and broken; others had metal frames completely blown to bits. Others were covered in crumbs of baguette and drops of red wine. They were the parapluie, the elusive and slightly snobby cousins of the common umbrella. But the grim reaper does not discriminate. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. Steady, old soldier, steady. There were huge umbrellas with broken spines. Even baby umbrellas. What kind of monster would do this to a baby umbrella in such cold blood plastic? It was a massacre of unprecedented proportions.
I’d like to take a moment of silence for all the umbrellas we lost in the streets this weekend.
I have an ominous feeling that we’re merely in the eye of the storm here.
