A Shadow's Tale

I am not made from anything, nor am I nothing. I am the absence of light, the figure that silently creeps beside my master down corridors and along sidewalks.

I am Master’s constant companion, the shadow that clings to his feet. I am forced to listen to his every word and witness every detail of his life. I mimic his movements and move my mouth to his words, yet I never say anything. I have no voice and nothing to say. All I can do is contort into hideous forms, my appendages stretching to unnatural lengths and shapes.

Sometimes Master will watch me disappear into crevasses where the light’s tendrils can’t reach. It is there, amongst unseen spider webs and accumulated dust, where I am no longer my master’s profile. I often expand outward, filling the corner with my absence and become what I think is myself. I cannot become more, I refuse to become less; it is a perpetual silent war of intangibles to which I see no end. It is during these times, however, that I must be prepared to once again assume my master’s shape and accompany him as he moves.

I easily slide up the walls and over obstacles as he walks towards another person. Another shadow patiently waits underfoot, miming the movements above him. When I am close enough, it and I weave ourselves together. There is no separation between us, no we or it, only I. I wonder if it was me all along, if I am an omnipotent being with many masters. I will never know if I am it or if it is me. It doesn’t matter, though. I am loyal to Master and so begin to articulate my silence with his movements.

Before long, the person above me holds out his hand and his shadow does the same. My arm melts into the proffered greeting while Master’s limbs remain his own. They cordially smile and shake hands and then pull apart, ripping me into two.

Master turns and walks through a doorway, leading me outside. I dip rhythmically into the spaces between the sidewalks, then over pebbles as Master crosses the street.

Suddenly, I’m warping. Outwards then inwards, shrinking and swelling. I rapidly slither around and under the hood of the speeding car that my master’s body has conformed to. The squeal of brakes reverberates through me and I am sent hastily across the asphalt.

The car stops and a panicking woman runs to Master. I slink across the growing pool of ruby blood, gaining depth to my shape while she rapidly pushes numbers on her cell phone.

I lie still as she hangs up and kneels down to my master and places her hands on his unmoving chest and pushes down on it again and again, periodically attempting to breathe her life into him.

When sirens pierce the air and ember-red lights sweep the street, I dance around them, avoiding their ghastly glow. An officer stands above me, his shadow beside me. It replicates the officer’s pencil moving across a notepad, and then disappears as the first camera flash plagues Master’s body.

It isn’t until a sheet is draped over my master’s form that the offending flash bulb leaves me alone. I am lying with the cooling body, unsure of who mimics whom. Is my Master with me or am I with him? I still cannot move except when the sheet is pulled down and the once-panicked woman regards us with bleary eyes and nods at us affirmatively. Time ceases to exist as the sheet creates a private world once more.

I do not move until the covering above me once again moves, and I am pushed into the corners of a silk-lined box. The wood glinting from the edges pin me to one side, barely attached to Master. I think about how many times I have mouthed the word coffin as Master did so, but never in context to him. When the lid closes, I expand to fill the coffin with my absence, to fill my master’s lungs with nothing.

Master is loyal and stays with me as he dissolves into the absence of a person, a figure
that silently lies with me as I witness every detail of his afterlife. He is my constant companion, the figure that silently clings to my ever-growing darkness.