Elizabeth Arden.

I don't know what made me run all the way back.

He had refused three times. He already refused. Profusely, too.

He was an elderly malay man sweeping up the dead leaves beneath my flat even though it was a wet day. Clad in a paper-thin uniform, and a matted black hat, he was drenched in the rain. I held out my large, red-rimmed Elizabeth Arden umbrella, whose canopy was filled with striking leopard prints.

"For you, Uncle. It's raining, you might fall sick. " I said.

"No, no, I'm going home now. I'm going to change out. It's okay, it's okay. It's okay, it's okay... I cycling home in rain. No need umbrella..." he brushed me aside and walked away.

I walked home to my elevator. In some way, I wished I had had a cheaper umbrella to give away instead of my Elizabeth Arden one. I was embarrassed at the thought- the reason why there are still the poor in the world is perhaps, we do not share enough.

A hundred and eighty degrees turn sent me running after him in the rain, with the red and leopard-printed Elizabeth Arden umbrella clutched in my right hand and the rain drizzling down generously on me.

The rain irritated me for ten seconds- he was out in it all afternoon. He was old enough to be my grandfather. He was in the rain. He was sweeping up leaves in the rain for the cleanliness of my estate. In a black hat in the rain.

The last time I took the elevator, another elderly malay cleaner smiled at me, and on probing, told me what a bad migraine he had had because of working hard under the bad weather. He keeps our lifts clean.

"Uncle, you take home, I give you. You not using today, never mind. Next time it rains, you must use okay? Or else like that will fall sick. What is your name Uncle?"

Uncle Ahmad took my red and leopard-printed Elizabeth Arden umbrella home.


The Poor have pride, too.