Kasa Obake

Ten days till Christmas, but this is not remotely Christmasy. If you find it so...then you have some very, very strange Christmas traditions.

“Maddy, I know you’re mad at me, but it’s very important that I have it!” The voice at the door spoke through the crack. “Please just let me see if I left it behind!”

“I bet it’s important!” Maddy cried, her hand firmly on the doorknob so it would not open any further. “Certainly more important than me! And you know what I think? I think I’m tired of your stuff being more important than me, Hiro! This whole time I’ve been with you it’s ‘don’t touch that,’ and ‘stay away from that’! And I’m tired of it! You don’t want me, then too bad about your stupid special umbrella!”

“But Maddy!”

“It’s Madeline to you!” She snapped, and slammed the door shut. The umbrella propped by the stairs watched her. She had nice legs—it was all the umbrella could see of her as she stomped past in her pink fuzzy socks—but it didn’t like how squeaky and harsh her voice was when she spoke to Hiro. Hiro should never be spoken to that way. The umbrella didn’t like it.

There was silence for a moment and then a man’s face appeared in the living room window, barely visible from the hallway. He was young, good looking, of Asian descent, and frowning in concentration as he peered into the window. He was wedged between the sill and the bushes. There was a shriek of rage from the kitchen and here came Madeline’s legs again, and the fuzzy pink socks. She was shouting about the police now. Hiro’s face vanished from the window and there was a massive crash.

Madeline wrenched open the door and shouted after him: “You wrecked my planters, you—”

It was shocking, the kind of language she used. And really, it was not appropriate to speak that way to Hiro. Hiro was a gentleman, and after all, he was only trying to get his umbrella back. They belonged together. She ought to be more reasonable, thought the umbrella. He’s only trying to help. This woman is not very bright.

Maddy flounced back to the kitchen. When she was gone, the umbrella stuck out its long tongue and cleaned its single eyeball thoughtfully, like a large, triangular gecko.

Twenty minutes later her legs were striding back and forth along the hallway, one hand on her hip, talking on her phone. “Like, I only started dating him in the first place because he was kind of cute—like that sort of weird cute, you know? …… No, gosh, not like that. I mean, he was carrying this stupid umbrella with a foot for a handle, and wearing a monocle—I know, right? So weird. But so cute. He has these cheekbones…But anyway, I ended it this morning. Because he kept trying to like, keep me away from his stuff, and he was super protective, I mean, I’m like ‘Hey, modern woman here, hello!’ …So I’m going to get back at him—Ew, gross!” The fuzzy pink socks stopped at pool of liquid that had seeped across the floor.

Embarrassed, the umbrella carefully pulled its tongue back inside its mouth. It hadn’t meant to drool, but it had been here overnight and the woman hadn’t even offered it a peanut butter sandwich. It thought about Hiro and the lovely hamburgers he’d made. It liked them well cooked, with ketchup, onions, and bananas.

Madeline continued talking, somewhat muffled as she rummaged around in her broom closet for cleaning supplies. “So get this; I just texted him to meet me at Corners, and I’m going to carry his umbrella to him.” She was wiping up the drool now, and the umbrella, unnoticed, watched her with its single eye. “Like, you know, I’m going to touch it with my supposedly inferior hands, since he was so insistent that I not … uh-huh….Exactly. But then. Get this. Then, I’m going to torch the thing!”

The umbrella’s eye popped. It rolled around to stare at her, wide eyed.

“Yeah, exactly. I know, right? ….Yeah, well, I told him I’d meet him at 4 so…” She walked away, her voice fading.

The umbrella began wiggling its toes to knock itself sideways. No luck. It strained, it stuck out its tongue in concentration, it squeezed up its single eyeball—no use. It remained solidly wedged against the staircase. Trapped.

She walked back in, wearing boots. The umbrella squeezed its eye shut quickly, so it only felt the rush of cool, wet air as she opened the door. Madeline snickered. “Ooh, even better. I’m sure he won’t want his precious umbrella being used!” She turned around and grabbed the umbrella. Its eye blinked open in shock, glanced at Madeline and then shut again quickly. Madeline didn’t notice; she was looking at the foot shaped handle with a grimace. “Ugh, so creepy.”

Then she unfurled it and walked outside. Unnoticed on top of the umbrella the single eye opened, rolling around in the light drizzle falling from the sky. It was not a complicated creature. In the immediate pleasure of fresh air and movement it set aside its worries about the human carrying it. No doubt Hiro would manage to rescue it. He always had before. So the umbrella cheerfully bobbed along with Madeline’s stride until they reached a street corner with a café, and there sitting under an awning reading a newspaper, was Hiro!

The umbrella smiled in satisfaction. What a happy moment! Now Hiro would stop this woman from doing anything drastic and convince her to give it back to Hiro, to whom he belonged. It was unclear as to why she thought touching the umbrella would bother Hiro. It wouldn’t at all; he only didn’t like people to touch it to avoid upsetting them. As soon as Hiro explained that, everything would be fine.

Hiro was not looking happy though. The umbrella could not understand why. Were they not about to be reunited?

“Maddy!” Hiro said, jumping to his feet. “What—”

Madeline canted the umbrella to the side saucily and said, “Oh hello, Hiro, were you missing this? Turns out my poor pitiful female self actually can be around creepy foot umbrellas without disaster—” she produced a lighter from her pocket.

The umbrella could not see what was happening but it did not like the look of surprise and horror on Hiro’s face.

“Oh, oops, what’s this?” She cooed, flicking the flame on. “Can my simple female brain handle this kind of technology without destroying anything?”

He started forward, “Please, Maddy, don’t—”

The umbrella was somewhat hazy on what exactly the humans were talking about. The woman seemed to be asking questions, but surely if anybody could help her handle confusing things, it was Hiro. In complete faith, it grinned at him, a wide mouthed grin with its massive pink tongue lolling out the side.

As Madeline raised the lighter to the edge of the umbrella, she saw the tongue. With a shriek, she dropped both lighter and umbrella into a puddle. It immediately hopped upright, grinning hugely with its tongue flopping out. Free at last! What a wonderful day!

Pale and wide eyed, Hiro jumped up and grabbed the umbrella’s leg, holding it away from Madeline. For a frozen moment the three of them stared at each other. The rain pattered softly around them. Inside the café, somebody dropped a plate.

“Ume isn’t a normal—” Hiro began, but Madeline interrupted him with a shriek.

“What is that?!”

Then, in a move that the umbrella found sadly in keeping with her character as it had observed thus far, she did not bother to wait for an answer, but simply began screaming and running back down the street. Hiro made as if to follow her. The umbrella clamped down firmly on his hand with its foot.

Hiro stopped, and together they watched Madeline’s retreating figure. “Yes, I suppose you’re right, old boy. Just as well, really.” And Hiro extended the umbrella and turned to leave in the rain. A squeak came from his pocket and a small clockface popped out. He shoved it back into his pocket. “We’ll stop and finish the newspaper somewhere else, Clock. I think we’ve worn out our welcome at that place.”