A box of unclaimed umbrellas

An original literary non-fiction-style account of attending a public sale of unclaimed umbrellas.

The notice outside the hall promised a sale of unclaimed umbrellas. I went because I had broken my own and imagined that choosing a replacement would be quicker than shopping. Inside, a volunteer handed me a numbered card and pointed towards three tables. The umbrellas lay folded in shallow boxes, their hooked handles facing different ways.

There were plain black ones, bright striped ones and one with a duck's head for a handle. Without their owners, they looked like a gathering whose conversation had stopped. I opened a green umbrella and discovered a small tear near its edge. A volunteer put a paper label around the handle. She said they wanted people to know what they were buying. I folded it more carefully than I had opened it.

A man beside me examined a compact blue umbrella. He said it resembled one he had lost, though his had been larger. After a pause, he added that it might also have been black. We both laughed. There were no names on the umbrellas and no stories supplied with them. My guesses about their owners became less reliable the longer I looked.

When the sale began, the duck-headed umbrella attracted several raised cards. A woman near the front secured it and looked pleased enough to make the whole room seem less severe. The green one sold quietly to someone who had inspected the tear. I bought a plain grey umbrella after checking that it opened and closed properly.

Outside, it had begun to rain. The woman with the duck stood beside the steps, struggling to untangle its strap. I held my grey umbrella over both of us while she worked. For the first time that morning, I knew something about one of the umbrellas which had not been a guess. Mine was large enough for two people who had not arrived together.

What do you learn from the whole passage about choosing and giving new use to the unclaimed umbrellas?