Umbrellaman

What follows is my entry into the urban legend flash fiction contenst by @jrhughes. The rules are basically that the story must be 1000 words or less (judges, please omit this note and the one after the story when counting… the story part itself is just under 1000 by my word processor’s count) and it must involve an urban legend. So without further ado…

Ordinarily, Brian wouldn’t have accepted an offer to go drinking with Shane. Shane was a New Zealander, and like all other kiwis Brian had met over here, a bit of a dick. He had been quick to ingratiate himself with the management and always stuck up for the company throughout its sleazy behavior; it was quite obvious he was angling for a management position himself. And maybe he would get it some day, but for now, he was in exactly the same position as Brian, despite seven years of seniority, and making exactly the same salary.

Except that those salary payments were now three weeks overdue, and rumors were swirling about the company’s insolvency. The daily faxes from HQ in Kyoto about how everything was fine and the bank error had been worked out and the money would be showing up in their accounts any minute now did little to reassure at this point. Oh, Shane defended them for the first few days — “Some wanker at the bank hit the wrong button. I’m sure everything’s fine.” — but now it was clear even to him what was really going on here, and his toadiness had began to waver. As time passed, he ingratiated himself with Brian, as if Brian knew a way out of this mess. But as they were the only two teachers left at their small school after the other two stopped showing up, Shane apparently had run out of other people to ingratiate himself with.

And he had offered to pay for the drinks.

They had tiptoed around the topic for a while, but by the time Brian had started his second beer and Shane was finishing up his fourth, they were into it. Shane, clearly near tears at times, dumped his whole story; how he had a degree in finance, but hated his job as a CPA back home; how he had found out about teaching ESL in Japan on the web while bored at work, and applied that same day; how he didn’t necessarily like the job, but had fallen in love with the country and couldn’t imagine going back home and doing something he hated if the company failed.

All in all, it was pretty much the same as Brian’s story.

Finally, Shane decided he had had enough beer and settled the bill with the bartender. As they stepped out of the door, they saw that the overcast afternoon had given way to an out-and-out evening thunderstorm, the drenched streets reflecting the neon above.

“Bloody hell,” Shane cursed as Brian retrieved his umbrella from the stand outside the door. “I left my umbrella back at the school. I always forget the damned thing when it’s not actually raining.”

“Oh, here you go,” Brian said as he pulled another cheap umbrella out of his bag. “I always have a spare.”

“Ha ha, you’re like Umbrellaman. Have you heard about that wanker?”

Brian squinted behind his glasses as Shane unfolded the cheap umbrella, pointing it into the wind so it wouldn’t collapse. “Oh, bits and pieces from my students.”

“He gave one to Miyu!” Shane exclaimed. There was just too much rain for the tiny umbrella to completely shield him from, but it was better than nothing. “Last Thursday! Her umbrella had broken, so she was walking to the station, just holding her bag over her head. Bloke just ran up, Ultraman mask and everything, and handed her an umbrella! ‘Douzo,’ just like that. Then just goes chasing after some other bloke with no umbrella, gives him one, ‘douzo.’ She tried to get a photo with her phone, but he was gone before she could get it out.”

“Huh.”

“She went to Ni-Channel to post about it - you know, they’re nuts about Umbrellaman on that thing, thread after thread, posting blurry photos - and she said there were half a dozen other people saying they saw him in the area that day too.”

“Ni-Channel? That message board thing?”

“Yeah.” He adjusted the umbrella in the shifting wind. “A nutter, that guy, gotta be. Wasting his money, I think.”

“Well, it’s a random act of kindness sort of thing, don’t you think? And cheap umbrellas are only 100 yen in konbini, and maybe he buys them in bulk.”

“Right, maybe he thinks he’s healing his soul or some shite like that, but in the end, he’s just helping out a bunch of fools who should have just brought their own umbrellas in the first place.”

“Like you?” Brian allowed himself to briefly relish Shane’s wince, but quickly moved on. “Have they figured out who he is? On Ni-Channel?”

“Lots of guesses, but nobody knows for sure. He's always wearing a mask, always running. Anyway, apparently there’s more than one now. Copycats. The Nag, Osaka, at least a couple in Tokyo. Wearing Doraemon and Kamen Rider masks, one bloke even doing it in full costume.”

“Oh, really?” Brian raised his eyebrows. Copycats? He hasn’t heard about copycats before.

“Maybe they should all get together and go trick-or-treating. Miyu thinks hers was the real one, though.”

“He very well may have been.”

By now, they were at the station. Shane said he had to get home before he got an earful from Miyu, but Brian wanted to stop by the konbini for an onigiri or two first, so they parted ways.

But Brian didn’t go into the store. He walked past it, past the bright fluorescent light pouring out the windows and shimmering on the rain-spattered concrete, and turned the corner into a darkened side street. He checked over his shoulder; nobody. He generally didn’t like to work so close to the school or his apartment, but it was already so late.

Even after the one he had given to Shane, he knew he still had over a dozen left in his bag.

He turned towards the concrete wall, checking over his shoulder once more before he pulled the mask into place.

---

This story is based on an idea I’ve built up in my head (and even outlined on paper) that I was thinking I’d like to make into a novel some day, but I thought I could tweak and minimize it to suit the theme and rules of this writing contest as well. The novel would go into more detail about how Brian unwittingly came to become Umbrellaman and the cult of personality that builds up around him. The background story of the failing school is based on the true story of the 2007 collapse of a mismanaged chain of ESL schools called Nova that left thousands of Japanese and foreign employees unpaid and unemployed in its wake, though the timeline of that is compressed to take place during the Japanese typhoon season. For better or worse, though, I haven’t had much time or initiative to actually sit down and make a novel out of it so far. Let me know what you think.

Also, it’s been over a decade since I’ve spoken with any kiwis in real life, so I apologize if Shane’s mannerisms are not quite correct. Based on the ones I’ve met, though, all New Zealanders really are a bit of a dick… sorry, but that’s just how it has been for me. 🤷‍♂️

Image source, modification by me