“Mom, it’s raining umbrellas.”
To our Little Anna Josephina Francisca, this was no longer too unusual. She’d so often look out the window and see things that shouldn’t be raining from the sky rain from the sky—not only umbrellas; she had seen a literal rain of cats and dogs, and it wasn’t pretty, seeing the dogs land to their death and the cats get away with another of their nine lives. Little Anna Josephina was often skeptical and especially furious about this, for she loved dogs and felt the exact opposite for the horrid creatures otherwise known as cats. She despised them so much that she almost stabbed the one living in their house with a pole when it tried to come near her peanut butter sandwich.
“Mom, it’s raining umbrellas,” she repeated. She tapped her tiny fingers on the windowpane.
Not just that—she had been there to witness a rain of glass, wherein, sadly, many got wounded, their arms, legs, and faces incised, and, killed, too. She could remember well the fascinating cupcake rain from two days ago. But on that day her Mom had forbidden her to eat sweets, so she never got the chance to know the taste of a cupcake from the sky.
Look, the sky is vomiting. And that, as well. But she wasn’t so intrigued about it.
Little Anna Josephina Francisca said it again. “MOM, IT’S RAINING UMBRELLAS.” She hated it when Mom didn’t answer her. She went to the kitchen and grabbed a chair, so she could sit by the window and watch the rest of the umbrella rain. She also brought her favorite pillow along, just in case.
Mom’s voice came from upstairs. “Oh, really, dear? That’s very nice.” It seemed from her tone that she meant otherwise. She was probably cleaning the nursery again. But, Little Anna Josephina Francisca thought, why clean when there’s a wonder such as an umbrella rain to see? She would never understand Mom.
As she watched spectrums of umbrellas float slowly to the ground and disappear, crumbling to what looked like piles of colored sand, music started to play. Sweet, gentle music. The falling umbrellas swayed as they cradled in the air, coinciding with the rhythm in Little Anna Josephina Francisca’s head. Her attention shifted to the little pastel blue umbrella that got caught in between some electrical wires. She shrugged. Her house was so far away from it, anyway. Should it burn, she’d still live.
However, despite Little Anna Josephina Francisca’s constant attempts to spend her Saturday mornings peacefully, there was still that dreaded cat. And this time, it crept along the carpet and sat beside one of the legs of the chair she sat on. She was startled when it let out its annoying ‘meow,’ which, to her, was the sound of hell slowly breaking loose. The cat walked to the middle of the floor, curled itself into a ball and started licking its own fur. It was easily the most repulsive thing imaginable.
She stared at the cat, dumbfounded. It had crumbs of carrot cake on its lips. And the carrot cake was hers, Little Anna Josephina Francisca’s. She bit her lip. Mom made it last night for her and her alone. Enraged, she flailed the pillow at the creature, and it shrieked, running away and back to the cardboard box it considered its home.
“I knew I should’ve sent you out when it rained pitchforks,” muttered Little Anna Josephina Francisca, under her breath, of course, so no one would hear.
