You are always obsessed by umbrellas. Especially polka- dotted umbrellas with accent on brown and pink. Like gently swaying little parachutes under the rain, umbrellas weave to you many stories. Not exactly stories but little episodes. Untitled. With no textbook beginning or ending.

Like the little episode about a girl named Kristine.

She is seventeen. A leggy, freckled-face teen with a thunderclap smile and pine tree scent breath. Cotton-soft. Fragile. And adorable to a point of pain.

You bump into her at a rain-drenched park in this flower city of the south while tearfully holding on to her polka-dotted umbrella. Her lips pouting. Her knee-low skirts bobbing up and down against the playful winds.

From a leafy shade where you stand, she is a cinematic delight. An embattled heroine crying for dear succor. For instant chivalry which you alone in the empty park can unleash. Without risking a front tooth or a tiny limb.

Funny but for some moments you stand still. Clutch on to hesitation. Until she finally lets loose a wildcat cry. Dumps her arms. And there you go. An instant, rain soaked hero by her side.

At a coffee shop, she bubbles out her name like a matter-of- fact moment. Kristine. An eight-letter word which somehow sizzles to you an instant special feeling. As you try to read the alphabet in her eyes. Hear some distant nursery rythmes from her mouth. Feel the cold shivers around her body. Even as the once overcast sky is now a canvass of high-flying white clouds. And from the park, you hear the giggles of half-naked children. Romping around with rain water and mud.

Kristine. A freshman coed at a downtown university. Majoring in Biology. Meager. Staccato items about her which she coos sadly in half-smile. You look at her intensity. Feeling both funny and sad. But certain of something intensely precious which you have suddenly found. A rock cradle gathering dust in a attic. A diamond wedding ring wrapped in a box of paper snow. A bouquet of roses awash with tears of grief. Small. And yet meaning-laden bric-a-bracs of your years which have been long hiding from remembrance. But are now spinning before you. Like a musical carousel. In this chance encounter with Kristine.

She pouts her lips. You suppress a motion to hold her hand. But as quickly, she sneaks to the exit door. Clumsily dragging her still rain-dripping umbrella. Without a hint of goodbye.

You are always obsessed by umbrellas. Especially polka- dotted umbrellas with accent on brown and pink. For they are hints of rains. Sounds of many a rain drenched park. And images of other young sad-eyed Kristines. Also fragile. Adorable to a point of pain. And afraid of goodbyes.