I just couldn't fathom why my umbrella chose the worst time to pick a fight with me on said day.
Sometime last week, I had a campus examination scheduled but my morning was thrown off when I woke up to a last minute update; the exam time had been pushed up from 10am to 8am. Given the distance from home to campus, this news was not a funny one. Still, I rushed to get ready and attempted to make it to campus on the new schedule.
Amidst the morning mayhem, I caught a glimpse of another urgent update, this time from my weather app. The update was a warning about an impending rainy day. With the way it has been rainy these few weeks, I wasn't surprised.
After hastily carrying out most of the activities I needed to carry out that morning, I boarded a bus and arrived on campus a few minutes past nine o'clock. The gentle drizzle during the bus ride had me feeling incredibly fortunate, thinking I'd manage to stay dry right up until after the exam. If only I knew the plight that awaited me.
Up until the time I finished writing my exam, the weather was seemingly okay but the moment I stepped out of that hall, it started raining heavily. It felt like the clouds were just waiting to show me something. So much for feeling fortunate.
But, I came prepared right? I didn't think this to be a problem because I was with an umbrella. A small portable umbrella.
Now, on a normal day, I would wait it out but that day was far from normal. For starters, I literally had to run out of my house without having breakfast. Also, I had another exam the next day and needed to do some brushing up, so I couldn't stay.
After giving myself enough valid reasons to begin my return journey in the rain, I picked up my unconventionally heavy bagpack, flicked open my umbrella and began the short walk to the bus station.
Everything was going well until a strong wind came my way. This wind turned my umbrella over and I was left standing in the rain with no shield. This would be a romantic moment if I had a lover standing right next to me but of course, there was nothing like that. Just my exhausted self fiddling with a broken umbrella in the rain.
At this point, I didn't even have the strength to seek shelter because the closest thing to a shelter was back where I came from and I wasn't going back there. After a few seconds of fiddling with the broken umbrella, I was able to restore it back to shape and then I continued my journey. Was I being stubborn? Yes please.
The same thing happened again and after the second time, I hacked it. The umbrella kept doing this because it was positioned slightly opposite to the direction of the wind and the wind in turn aimed to move every obstacle from its way, including my wee umbrella.
Unrelenting, I trudged forward and eventually found a tricycle that would take me to the nearest bus stop. The journey down there was turbulent as the wind was even threatening to bend the tricycle I was in. Need I mention how cold I felt in all of this. I was shivering like a leaf on a windy day.
I sat quietly in this tricycle, planning my next move and the best possible way to hold my umbrella just so it doesn't misbehave again. But just like a ploy, once I arrived at the student鈥檚 bus stop, in the very same campus, the rain stopped as abruptly as it began. This was when I figured that the clouds were really trying to tell me something.
Maybe, if I waited a little longer, I would have returned home with my feeling of luck intact but that didn't happen and that's okay.
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