A Short Story: The Girl with the Purple Umbrella
There once was a girl named Lila who strolled through town with a purple umbrella—always open, even on the sunniest of days. She wore socks that didn’t match, spoke in rhymes when no one asked, and could often be found conversing with lamp posts or feeding imaginary pigeons.
People in the town of Dullingshire whispered.
“She’s strange,” said the baker.
“Weird,” nodded the barber.
“Completely off,” murmured the mayor.
“Possibly crazy,” concluded the postman.
One day, a curious boy named Felix asked her why she did the things she did. She twirled her umbrella, smiled, and said:
“I’m not strange, weird, off, nor crazy—
My reality is just different from yours, dear Daisy.”
“My name’s Felix,” he corrected.
“Exactly,” she winked.
She invited him to walk with her. Under her umbrella, the world looked different—full of colour, music, and upside-down rainbows. Trees whispered secrets, puddles shimmered like portals, and the clouds giggled above.
By the time they returned, Felix wasn’t sure whether he had visited another world or simply looked at his own for the first time. He tried explaining it to others, but they shook their heads and gave him cautious glances. He didn’t care.
From that day on, Felix carried a green balloon wherever he went and sometimes whistled at flowers to see if they’d sing back.
And when people whispered about him, Lila simply smiled and said,
“Welcome to my reality.”
And that’s how the world became a little less dull, and Dullingshire never quite lived up to its name again.
The Crazymad Writer Writes Again 