Tuesday, April 02, 2013

The Umbrella of the Future



Sarah finds the clicker, turns on the TV, sips her tea, waits.  Cold mornings lately, the little Sony seems sluggish, slow to wake.  Sarah hopes it’s not dying, hopes this is just a winter thing.  Imagines a small black animal, old, squarish, sedentary.  Dreaming colorful TV dreams, waking reluctantly, shivering a little.  Regaining its capacity for speech first: “Next- Is this the umbrella of the future?” someone at the Weather Channel says.  By the time the screen has brightened, picture wholly coalesced, they’ve gone to a commercial.  

(First published in Ink Sweat and Tears, 2007.)

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