I first met the girl with the red umbrella one foggy morning in April on my way to work. Just one in a crowd. Just like me. I can tell you I wasn’t following her, but I can’t tell you I didn’t notice either. Walking on opposite sides of the street, the walk to work turned into something else, something new. A red umbrella in a sea of blacks and navys, the air was damp, her long hair cascaded down her shoulders with an elegance all it’s own. Her eyes while not grey and lifeless by any means, felt as if they reflected the world around. And even with the distance between us our eyes did meet. I crossed the street and she took my hand.

What more should I tell you? What more should I know? The kind of story that this inevitably may be, maybe I should describe in clarity the softness of her skin pressed against mine, the gentle swell of her breasts, or the curve of her back as I trace her arcing silhouette bathed in the afternoon light of our hotel room. As you can probably guess, I didn’t make it to work that day. I never saw her again, but I didn’t go to work the next day either, or the day after that. I don’t know what I did after that, nor can I remember anything beyond a blur of the innumerable faces and names that were to follow.

All I ever see when I close my eyes is the girl with the red umbrella. Swimming in a sea of blacks and navys.