The summer breeze that blows up my shorts and across my face is refreshing. I’m in the shade of a big 7ft canvas umbrella on our company’s top floor patio.

What is that smell? I swear it’s like onion corn chips. Should I be hungry by it? Why can’t I focus on this book? I thought In Secret Service would be cool to read. I mean who wouldn’t want to read about a cross over non/fictional with Sir Ian Flemming revealing MI5 and MI6 secrets? I think it was the death of “a popular person” in a Paris tunnel in 1997. I am glad I’m not reading The Passage anymore. Not that I didn’t like it – 1000% the opposite. I LOVED it – it’s just 700+ pages huge in hard cover, a burden to lug around. It was like reading a remix/reimaging of The Stand but without the StevenKingy melodrama. I love post-apocalyptic books  – I think it’s because it would be cool to scavenge for food while I lived on the top floor of the Sutton Place Hotel, safe from the nightly vampyres. Or zombies. I hope he writes more. He certainly left it open for at least 11 more books. Is that smell a deep rich cheese?

Ske.

I look up from my book. The breeze makes the canvas flap on the umbrella like a lazy moray eel.

What was that? And that smell keeps on coming and going. I’m glad I’m only working a couple nights a week now. More time to get things done. Note to self, must get artist’s profile page templates done for ArtWithHeart.ca and let them know they’re ready for proof. Is that a hint of sour cream I smell?

Skreee…

The pole to the umbrella spins a bit in its weighted base.

I’m so square. Like, not nerdy cool square. When I was doing greeting at the Apple store, I overheard two guys talking about their mutual friend saying rather disgustedly that he was wearing “Old Navy” from head to toe. I wear Old Navy from head to toe. I couldn’t be more squarer if I had dissident students and tanks living in my chest hair. I’m drinking fucking Crystal Light at my desk job, for godssake. I wonder why my 30s raced by me so fast. I’m literally half way through my life, if I had been taking care of myself as a kid. I wonder if I’ll become famous. Is that smell …onion and cheese?

SKREEEE!

In the wind, the umbrella rises slowly at first, then faster, the pole leaving its moorings.

Holy fuck! And that smell!

I reach out for the umbrella pole and grab it with less than 2 ft left before releasing itself from the table hole. I’m struggling with the whole thing wanting to fly away in the breeze when a second pair of hands shoot past my shoulder. A co-worker had seen the umbrella rise up and came to my aid.

Dude! Thanks!

We wrestle the umbrella back into it’s base. As the bottom of the pole hits the base, a splash of rusty red gunk splashes up and hits my glasses, forehead, shirt. I feel the warm rustwater slide down my head, my cheek like fresh blood.

Christ! What the fuck!? Ugh! Is that where the smell was coming from?!

I fold the umbrella up and head into the office loo to clean the rust from my face. As I pass the good samaratan co-worker, I notice his shoes are off. It is the source of the onion, cheese, warm ham smell. I gag slightly.