Every time the wind rose, he found himself wrestling with the same stubborn umbrella, an object that never quite did what it was meant to. The gusts pulled at it like a mischievous force, bending its frame, tugging at his coat, daring him to keep moving. He pushed forward anyway. Life had never been soft with him; he had spent years trying to beat the odds, to be gentler than the world had ever been to him. And still, despite everything that tried to knock him down, he got back up each time, meeting the storm head-on. Step by step, he kept going, less a man fighting the weather than someone learning, despite it all, to move through it.