Another drenched, dreary weekday morning rears its ugly head in Boston’s Back Bay and Financial Districts. The streets are strewn with ghostly skeletons of the dearly departed. Once useful and proudly displayed in ornate holders and stands in the homes of the moderately well-to-do, their utility has been shaken to their very core.
Earlier this morning, they were neatly hung on hooks or racks by front and back doors. Strongly encouraged by their parents, children grabbed them on their weary, waking way to bus stops throughout the city and its sprawling suburbs.
Distinguished, disgusted, disgruntled businessmen and women shiver in their overcoats, rushing to their next appointments, while mothers unselfishly and firmly guard their infants and toddlers on their way to daycare from the dampening downpours by bundling them tightly against their bodies and covering their tiny, innocent faces with scarves and make-shift shelters – some only made of newspaper - by those busy moms that didn’t have time to wait for the weather forecast before heading out the door to start their busy days.
Office building lobbies are filled with puddles and “wet floor” signs. Maintenance men wielding mops can scarcely keep up with the continual dirty footprints that never seem to stop coming. Finally, and after much struggle, the ladies’ room provides safe haven as disheveled women line up to use the hand-dryer – inefficient for even its intended use, to attempt to partially dry their frizzy, flattened hairdos. Those workers lucky enough to have an illegal space heater under their desks finally begin to get comfortable warming their feet, and sipping their coffee or tea.
Several hours pass as hungry workers decide to break out for their well-deserved lunches and are pleasantly surprised that the rain has ceased and that the sun has broken through the clouds. Their weary light-deprived eyes squint to accept the sight of a big yellow ball in the sky, which has been absent and blotted out by clouds for what seemed like several weeks. Hard-pressed smiles struggle to form on the executives lips, but are squelched midstream by a vivid recollection of the morning’s chaos and a ghostly vision.
Once useful, now only their skeletons serve as a grim reminder of their past utility. Shaken to the core by ungodly gusts they could no longer withstand, they lie abandoned in the streets – their spines recklessly shattered and smashed like the backbones of pre-abolitionist slaves or inmates condemned to hard labor, creating an ad hoc mausoleum of sorts.
At long last, the thrashing, thundering street-sweeper swallows and eventually cremates their remains – but there will be no lament or worship over their premature demise. The entire stage has been swept clean, changing the scene dramatically. The sun is now shining over what was only a few hours ago a resting place for the discarded, under-appreciated, and abused in what can only be referred to as the umbrella graveyard.
