The Umbrella

I was over at Twitches' blog a while back and read about how she often posts poems that are pretty old. I'd always thought she was remarkably productive, but, apparently, I was wrong. So, she admitted that she posts old work and is often unconcerned about whether or not it's any "good." I admire that kind of thinking, and believe it's pretty much necessary to get down on paper plenty of the bad and the ugly if we're ever going to find anything truly worth exploring.

In that vein of thinking, I suppose, I'm going to put up a little flash fiction I wrote, um, almost ten years ago. It was published in my undergrad literary magazine, in fact, exactly nine years ago last week.

As for the odd paragraph breaks, I'd recently read Mark Costello's "Murphy's Xmas," and was obviously imitating him, though because the story is formatted in "blogger-mode," the paragraph breaks don't quite look the way they should. Other influences shouldn't be all that tough to figure out.
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The Umbrella

Posso a usare il ombrello, per favore, Signore?

Si, prego. Ma pensi che pioverai?

Certo. Grazie.

They rounded the corner of Via Corso and headed down

the narrow, cobblestoned street

toward the English pub. As the mist became rain

the young man positioned the umbrella ahead and released its black canopy. The young woman hurried beneath it and touched his arm.

A block before the bar, she pulled him beneath the roof's overhang and kissed him hard on the mouth.

The rain was forming large, dark puddles on the street. Beneath the overhang

he positioned the umbrella to the side and held it low.

Kiss me again, she said.

Let's go. They're waiting.

I don't want to go. She looked down at the retracted umbrella and paused. You still don't think I like you, do you? He kissed her

behind the ear.

Why can't you accept that I like you? And she pulled

his face to hers.

Soon after, they turned back toward his apartment, letting the rain wet their heads.

The next morning at breakfast, the Signore commented that the young man was very intelligent for taking the umbrella out the night before. He smiled and touched his finger to his temple. And the young man was certain

that the girl who waited quietly in his room did not like him in the least.