She adjusted the wet wings of her sleek black umbrella as if they were the masses of dark air flowing towards a tornado. She then used the attached massive strap to confine the folded, wet umbrella even more. Water was dripping from it even more now. The pouch which she pulled out of her pocket barely wanted to accept the incredibly drenched black object. It took several attempts... Once the umbrella looked like a black magic stick with a cord attached to one end, the elegant woman stuck it into the pocket of her coat. "Beats getting wet.", she said, seeing me looking at the place in the center of the car where she just performed her umbrella contortion maneuver.
"I hope you will give it some air later,..." I heard myself say. It was as if the umbrella were an animal she stuck into a paper bag without leaving any air holes. (Why did I reply that?... strange.)
"Later, once I get to the office. I am not a big fan of mold." She pulled out her cranberry and began browsing through her massive list of emails... the micro conversation was over for her...
I did not answer... I just stared at the door and thought that I really liked certain kinds of mold. Maybe not the kind she could have gotten with her wet umbrella, or the kind that will probably bring the Deutsche Bank building down, south of ground zero,... but I imagined touching a really velvety piece of camembert... then thought of the last time when I had to take penicillin...
And then I thought that it was the sometimes playful silliness of my mind that would prevent me from achieving access to that fast lane on which this obviously very "successful" woman was traveling... If she was "Human Being 2.0"... the faster, better, more effective kind, I was a bit of a beta test, still exploring and observing the twists and turns of the little threads that pulled my aging body through the stunningly complex detours of the labyrinth of life...