https://Voice.club - What a dreary day! Outside, a scowling sky, stinging needles of rain, an ocean of black umbrellas. Inside, the same discussion, night and day. Finding Joanna a husband.
“Someone serious-minded,” Mother demands. “Someone hardworking,” Father insists, donning his dark overcoat and brandishing his umbrella. He’ll soon melt into the crowd of breadwinners flowing toward the train station.
“Like a [something] of ravens,” Joanna mutters to herself, trying to remember the word.
A young man is shown in, hands her his card - “Dylan Murphy, Portraits”. He sets up easel and brushes, smears color after glorious color onto his palette.
"No need for all those, " Joanna sighs, lost in folds of the drab grey silk Mother chose for this setting.
“Hmmm.” The young man cocks his head to either side, taking her measure, making the first brush strokes.
His silence is both comforting and unnerving. She attempts a conversation opener.
“What’s the collective for ravens?”
“Unkindness.” She brightens up when she recognizes his correct answer, and hopes he’ll elaborate, but he seems content with the one word.
A while later she tries again. “Do you own an umbrella?”
“Many,” he responds and keeps painting.
“What colors?”
“Every color except black.” His longest answer yet, delivered with a hint of laughter. Joanna’s starting to appreciate his long silences. Freed from the rigors of small talk, she can brood on her dreary life.
The afternoon light is starting to fade when Dylan finally puts down his brushes and peers out the window. “Here they come.” Sure enough, the black umbrellas are returning home. “Like an unkindness of ravens, certainly.” He echoes her morning thoughts, then adds, “An unkindness only, Jo, not a malevolence. Surely you can manage that.”
“I was born into that world. But marriage is so … permanent.”
“Come see your portrait!” A riot of colors, energy and exuberance. Mischievous eyes, determined chin. A woman who knows her own mind.
“Is that really me?” The old, stale world of Joanna is disappearing, even as a new one begins to hum and sing.
“It’s you alright! Would this woman marry a raven?”
“Not on your life!” Jo exclaims.