judith, the first of the great danes

She walks through town with an inverted umbrella, its spines flexed inwards and up in the shape the wind swept it one day. 
 
A man passes by her. What are you doing with that broken umbrella, he says. Throw it away.

She tells him it’s her phonograph – her loud speaker. How will she be heard without it?

On a windy day, her umbrella bows further into itself and she thinks that perhaps it was always meant to be this way, and was simply stuck trying to be like all the other umbrellas for too long. And she feels love for the umbrella. ​And then she wonders if this is the beginning of the end – if perhaps things are always meant to fold into themselves, one day.
 
She passes the man again. He asks why she bothers with a broken umbrella. He does not understand, and she knows he will not come to understand. So she simply says, if I flip it back the other way, what will you watch in your boredom? Who will keep you entertained?
 
She is Judith, the golden one, the first of the great danes.

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