MARINA’S FLYING UMBRELLA

My name is Marina – to be precise, my parents gave me this name, because I was born close to the water.
Three months ago our adventure began with these same words, but actually I never told you what led my family to give me this name.
Well, it’s time to tell: the night I was born, it rained a lot. It was a deluge. Rivers got wider, and a weather alert was announced. Everybody was worried at the hospital, but the nurse who helped me coming to life took care of my mom, telling them that I was just sleeping quietly. It was true: while all the other ones were afraid, I just snored, I didn’t notice anything at all. I opened my eyes the morning after, when the sun was up in the sky and the emergency was over. I’ve been lazy since the very beginning, now we can admit it.

My name is Marina and I’ve been keeping you updated on this surreal journey for three months, and it doesn’t seem to come to an end. After risking to freeze up on a mountain, last November, this time I’m writing you right from the ocean. That’s right: my FILA umbrella has now become a lifeboat, on which I float while I wait for the end of it all. Ouff, wouldn’t it have been easier to stay and attend my P.E. lesson?
‘That was exactly was I was going to ask you, my dear Marina!’ the damn polar bear asks me, re-appearing suddenly one more time. He’s lying down on a pink sea mattress. I think I hate him.
‘It’s you again! My patience is over, take me to real life again!’
‘Oh, dear, you were already living in real life, but you escaped from there!’
‘Yes, it’s true’ I reply ‘I don’t like sports, they get me bored. I prefer reading a book, listening to music, even studying, but I can’t really make it with fitness’. A tear goes by, falling towards the ocean.
‘We would love to do so many things in our life, Marina! Do you think that everything is easy for us polar bears? Hibernating rather than enjoying being in forests and nature? It’s a pity, isn’t it? But it’s our nature! And you’re not simply a brain, you’ve got a working body, use it! Walk, run, expand yourself: don’t escape the real world, find the energy to turn it into a wood you’d love to live in!’
‘I guess this is what they call wisdom’
‘They drew me this way’
‘Dear bear, I would love to be back home. I have learnt my lesson well’
‘Morals are for vintage fables, Marina. Go, say hello to the world and keep this experience in your mind!’. With a stroke of his paw, he wipes me away from the umbrella, and make me fall in the depths of the sea. Is this the end?

‘No, Marina, it’s not over…we still have to start it up!’
What…? This is not the voice of the white bear…it’s the P.E. professor’s voice!
I am lying on the floor, with the rain falling down on my face. My classmates are standing, surrounding me, trying to keep me awake.
‘Professor, what happened? The ocean, the snow, the tennis balls…I can’t really understand a thing!’
‘Marina, don’t go out of your mind! You experienced a lack of sugar as we started out our run…actually, you could have breakfast more often, in the morning…’
A lack of sugar. It was a dream. It was real. I cannot deal with it. I overthink. I get up all of a sudden.
‘Don’t you worry, professor, I feel much better now! So, what are we all doing here? Come on, let’s go run!’
‘Marina, are you okay? Maybe we should take you to the infirmary room…’
‘I have never felt this good! I’m going to seize the rhythm: let’s go!’
With my flexed muscles and a never-seen-before move, I get the lesson started. My mates cannot believe that, but they stay right behind me, even a little surprised. The rain falls down with a light, continuous flow, but as I connect my breath and my heartbeat it becomes an impalpable veil on my skin.
The wind carries my umbrella away, faraway. I’m not sure I’m gonna find it again when I’m back.
In the meantime, I run.

“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
“When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”
“But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance—
“Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
“Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
“Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
Lewis Carroll, 1865