Have you had dreams in which you interacted with someone whose face you didn’t recognize, someone you had never met? Have you ever had that feeling that someone was watching you, hearing the words you spoke? Have you ever thought to blame your shadow? It’s with you all day, listening, following; but where does it go at night? And what does it do when you’re not paying attention?
Violet was a shadow; her own shadow. She neither remembered how she became so or knew how she could, or if she could, ever return to normal. She wandered the globe without human contact, continually reminded of her last interaction as a human.
“Mother,” Violet tossed an elegant gown on her mother’s bed. “Catherine Miller has the exact same dress as this one – the one the tailor told me was ‘one of a kind’. Oooh,” she flopped down beside the dress and let her clenched fist pound into it. “Nothing makes me more upset than being lied to.”
The mother continued painting makeup on her own porcelain face and replied without feeling. “Should we take it back and ask him to apologize, Violet dear? Or, perhaps we could ask Catherine Miller to take hers back?”
“You’re missing the point, Mother,” Violet snapped, sensing the mocking tone. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be strolling at The Square and pass by another girl in the
exact same dress? You can’t imagine my horror, how quickly I wished to vanish from the presence of the sun!”
Mother shook her head. She began to open her mouth to reply when Violet continued.
“When someone tells me my dress is unique, well, I expect that to be the truth. Why would he even say that? At my age, I need to stand out. None of the boys look at me anymore, Mother, none! I’m practically an old maid already. I should start knitting booties for my hundred cats now, since I will never marry and get to make booties for the children I shall never have.”
“Violet, dear, don't exaggerate. You do remember that I was almost twenty-two years old when I met your father. In my day that was even more humiliating. I wasn’t worried about having the same dress as another girl, I—“
“Mother, he lied! It’s not just the dress. What makes things worse is that Catherine was accompanied by Henry Black! Oh, Mother. He’s one of the last. He may be
the last good one. The rest have such sloppy hair and don’t even get me started on the way they dress. Why does Henry waste his time with Catherine? She is so plain.”
“Well, she did have the taste to buy the same dress you did, Violet dear.”
Violet sat up to make sure her mother could clearly see the glare on her face. “Every day I become more and more convinced that I am cursed, or I don’t know what, because nobody sees me. No one understands me or how I feel. Least of all you,” she added bitingly.
Her mother stood and placed her hairbrush on the vanity in front of her. “Do you know what it feels like to be Catherine? Do you know how she feels? What about Henry? Maybe he has feelings for her because she listens to him and tries to understand him. You could learn a lot about someone if you just listened and watched them live.”
That’s where the dream usually ended. Violet knew it was a real memory, something that had really happened, because she could not participate in the dream, she could only watch it happen. Again and again, until she stopped visiting her mother’s dreams. She suspected that any time she did visit her mother’s dreams, it was her presence that made the dream come.
At first she would go back, just to feel that someone remembered her. Then she was drawn back just to look upon her mother. And then she began to see the clues within the dream. The last statement her mother makes in the dream must hint to the reason why she became a shadow. Or maybe the part where she hears herself say, “I wished to vanish from the presence of the sun.” She cringed every time, even when she knew it was coming; she couldn’t believe she had really said it.
Violet had been a shadow for more years now than she had been a body that produced one in sunlight. Her memory was fleeting; it nearly erased every time she traded forms. Two sure things she never forgot, though, were that last conversation with her mother and the fact that she was no longer human in form.
And now, as she watched the man of her dreams lie sleeping, she tried to remember why she was choosing to leave. She didn’t want to lose all the memories she had made with him; he had made her feel the closest to human she had felt since … whenever she last was.
She remembered the first time his shadow had crossed her....
Somehow she had merged into the shadow of a small dog and as it walked through a park, a dizzying and aimless promenade, it stopped in the shadow of a trash can and Violet impulsively traded over to the can for a break. The dog shook like it would after a bath and then was gone.
The can’s shadow traced lazily along the walking path and into the grass as the sun stretched over the park. Violet always liked when the shadow she rode with cast across a gentle spread of grass.
Maybe she figured a trash can would get plenty of attention so she wouldn't have to be its shadow for long. A lot of shadows sauntered by, blazed by or briefly made a deposit to the can, but no one’s shadow ever merged enough with the can’s shadow that she could trade over. So day after day she arced from walking trail to grass until she thought she might lose her mind … which made her wonder where her mind even was.
Then he arrived. He leaned on the trash can to yank off his shoe. When he crouched down to lace the shoe to his foot again, the shadow of his face dipped into the shadow of the can. Violet hadn’t really merged via a face before; it felt like a kiss. His face lingered long enough that Violet was able to fully trade to his shadow before he stood.
His head turned side to side and for a moment he stood still.
“Déjà vu,” he whispered in the air. Violet knew her trade was complete. She smiled; it showed up on his lips. He bounced up and down and swung his arms in front and behind him. Then they were off, he and his shadow. And Violet. Running.
When he lay sleeping though, like now, that was her favorite time.
Wendell had run nearly every day since the Two Towers collapsed. It was as if something in him clicked, turned irreversibly to the on position, when he saw the buildings crumble. He would run a mile for every departed person, he would live for them in some minor way since they would never get to run again, and he would never take his heart and lungs and life for granted. He just ran, every day.
In nine years, he had long since covered the memorial miles that initiated the journey, and then he decided he would join the fire house where he lived, so he kept running to ensure he could rescue as many people whenever he could, whenever they were in danger.
Wendell also had a vivid imagination. It constantly interrupted his daytime thoughts and would create realistic—sometimes too realistic—dreams at night. For this reason he slept with a room completely dark and with white noise in the background. He had found this was the only way to keep his imagination at bay; a sort of repellent to the swarms of ideas never satisfied until put on paper.
Editor by profession, firefighter through volunteer hours, artist by hobby (though he’d only say it was doodling), and chef by night, he was a regular, perfect bachelor. He understood that a woman would greatly contribute to his life, but it just wasn’t that simple. Women had a mind of their own, and he never knew where to step, as it were, when a woman was around, fearing to make a wrong move. They weren’t like grammar and punctuation or like pencils and paper or like ingredients—they were constantly inconsistent and unpredictable. It just wasn’t that simple.
He had tried to have girlfriends before. At least he thinks he’d tried. But by the time he felt like he finally figured out where to step, she was gone while he was still watching his feet….
It didn’t hurt. He hadn’t really had anyone to lose yet. So he just kept cooking for one and setting aside money for two, for whenever she came—or whenever he figured out how to let her in.
Another strange thing. Lately he’d been dreaming of a girl he’d never met. Even with the white noise, which seemed to set a dull soundtrack to his subconscious, these dreams came regularly and vividly. Sometimes she was only there briefly or other times she seemed to take up space in his mind all night. He wondered why. Who, too. Why now? What started it?
Sometimes the stories he edited would make him have strange dreams, but he was on an academic project right now.
Maybe your imagination is bored, making up an imaginary girlfriend for its entertainment. He shrugged his nose at the thought.
“I could get a girlfriend if I wanted one. I don’t want one right now,” he convinced himself out loud. He was cooking for one again. He snipped some basil on top of his classic burrito fillings and rolled it up. Taking a big bite, he continued.
“Besides,” he muffled to himself, “I’ve got everything I need right here.” He jabbed the dripping burrito toward the rest of his studio apartment. “Oh crap,” he grabbed a towel and wiped the salsa drops off his pants and from the floor.
He sat on the barstool—yes, there was only one—and chewed and swallowed, one bite at a time.
Violet couldn’t believe her luck. The man—her shadow’s current form—slept in complete darkness. No light! That meant no shadows. She couldn’t recall any shadow she had previously joined to ever linger in complete darkness for hours on end. When there was no light she could spread out, stretch and move around. Sometimes she could almost see things, too. It was almost like being human again; as close as she could get, anyway.
But she paid a high price, she thought. All the running! The man almost never walked anywhere he went. It doesn’t even occur to most people how irritating it gets, being a shadow. The constant surface changing, movement, stretching, fading and thickening … How she wished she could detach sometimes and float away in the wind. Oh, the wind. She missed the wind.
And the sun. She missed the sun. And she hated the sun. Whenever there was sun, brightly beaming, her prison was tightest. It gave light to everything except for her. She never felt it because she was always in shadow. She was a shadow: a hollow reflection, no—an outlining, a silhouette of her former self. But she couldn’t be even that; she had to exist behind others. They would be in the spotlight and she would be behind them. Forever. But, she hoped not forever. She didn’t know how it would ever change, but she hoped.
Most people in Alaska had thick, dark window coverings. Wendell had completely solid shutters. They blocked out nearly every particle of light and a lot of noise, too. Not that it was very noisy, but the occasional low-flying bush plane or even a distant train whistle could wake him. He was a light sleeper ever since the attacks, too. Even when he exhausted himself running. And earplugs hurt, he just couldn’t use those. Yeah, so he’s strangely particular. He accepted the fact a long time ago.
He kept his bedside lamp on as he sat up in bed one night. He wasn’t reading or anything; he was hesitating. The woman of his dreams—no, that sounded positive. She wasn’t invited and yet she always came, in anonymous splendor. She was beautiful. Mature, but also young-looking. Her hair was long and he ached to touch it. He knew if she spoke that her voice would sound like leaves rustling in the wind. And another thing that bothered him: she was fully lit up in color, but her eyes seemed to always be hidden in shadow or something. He wanted to see the color of her eyes, to look into them.
But it’s only a dream! He chided himself. A recurring dream, one most welcome to return.
He turned the switch of the lamp and the shapes and colors around him were replaced with black. But then she was there in front of him.
“I’m not asleep,” he said dimly. His hand sprang back to the lamp and light crowded the small room. She wasn’t there. So now his dreams were infiltrating his reality … but only when it was dark? He must be losing his mind.
He sat in the light again until his eyes weighed down, the hourglass sands piling methodically. Wendell put his head down on his pillow figuring that he would be asleep the instant the light turned off and wouldn’t even have time to hallucinate. His arm lethargically reached toward the lamp, hitting it a couple times before he remembered to twist the small knob. His eyes were already closed when the light vanished, so it took a few minutes for the faint glow to register against his eyelids.
He opened one eye first, but it was mostly covered in pillow. The second eye saw the glowing coming from behind him. He moved cautiously, pretending he was just turning over in his sleep and peeked one eye in the direction of the glow. It was her! But she just sat there, often like she did in his dreams, like she didn’t even know she was there, waiting to be included or something.
He sat up quickly and she reacted. Her same shadowy eyes aimed in his direction.
“Who are you?” He demanded.
Violet was completely stunned. She couldn’t speak. Could she speak? She hadn’t tried in … she didn’t even know how long.
“Can … can you see me?” She asked.
Now it was Wendell’s turn to be speechless.
“Can you hear me?” She worried.
Wendell nodded, to him it felt like slow motion.
A smile spread Violet’s lips into her cheeks and she continued, in what felt like fast-forward.
“What do you see? What do I look like? Describe to me what I look like, please.”
“But, I’m not asleep…” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said. “I mean, no, you’re not. I’m here, I’m real. But you’ve been seeing me in your dreams because—“ she hesitated. How much should she reveal, how much would he understand?
“Do you remember a few weeks ago when you were running in the park and you bent over near a trash can to tie your shoe?”
Wendell’s eyes were wide; a mixture of fear, wonder, adrenaline and curiosity filled his body. He searched for the memory and oddly found it with extreme ease.
“Yes,” was all he dared say.
“Well, when you stood up you paused a moment and said, ‘déjà vu', do you remember that?”
He nodded, surprised how well he remembered the moment.
“That was me—well, that is to say…I, uh, I became part of your shadow.” It sounded strange coming from her lips.
He just stared. He blinked a couple times, but his eyes were chained to her glowing form.
“Since then have you felt like someone is always close to you, sometimes a feeling like you’re being watched or overheard?”
His body flinched in agreement and his gaze became distrustful.
“I don’t mean you any harm and I
can’t do you any harm,” she explained. “I can hardly ever hear you, either, and I don’t see you when I’m your shadow. I don’t see anything in the light of the sun, in any light. But I feel you move, I sense hesitation, I know when you’re feeling bold and confident or when you’re depressed or when you’re restless. I learn a lot about a person when I linger in their shadow. I know a lot about you, in only three weeks of following you.”
Swarms of questions buzzed loudly between his ears and beat against his teeth, burning to get out, but he sealed his lips and breathed laboriously through his nose. His fight or flight adrenaline was still flowing quickly, but as she spoke he became less worried and more curious. But he was still convinced that he was crazy and didn’t want to play along with his insane mind.
“I can’t harm you,” she repeated. “Speak to me, please. It has been ages since I’ve spoken with anyone.”
“Who are you?” the first question escaped.
“My name is Violet. Violet Aurora Bell. I was born in New York in 1842 to English immigrants Charles and Miranda Bell. I remember that much. It has been so long. At least I think it has...“
“You’d have to be over one hundred and fifty years old,” Wendell said in disbelief. “But you look no more than twenty, twenty-five at the max.”
“Oh, that's right. I was about to turn twenty-four before…before whatever happened.”
“You don’t remember what happened to you? How you became, uh…”
“A shadow.”
“That doesn’t make sense. How can I see you? You’re colorful and like, round and human-looking. It looks like I could reach out and tou—“ He didn’t finish the word.
“What do you see?” she asked again, eagerly.
“You can’t see yourself? You’re all glowy.” Wendell said.
“Well, I suppose that would be like asking the sun to look at itself…I only see blurred light if I look down right now. And I have no idea why. You see me, and for the first, real time, I can see you.”
“Why couldn’t you see me before?”
“Because in shadow there is only darkness; the light is always on the other side of the form I’m following. But what I wonder is why I can see you right now. Or more curiously, why you can see me, why I’m ‘glowing’, as you say.”
Wendell stared.
“I think it must be,” Violet continued, “because there is no light in this room. There is no light so there can be no shadow…and since that’s what I am, then I become free, if only temporarily, from your form—or any form for that matter.”
“That sounds complicated,” Wendell said, just to say something. He didn't understand one bit.
“I guess so. I’ve been living this way for over one hundred and fifty years, you say? Wow. I could feel that New York had changed a lot, but I’m sure it looks like a new world out there. I think one time I followed a wheeled wagon of sorts, but it went incredibly fast. I had to switch forms the moment I could. You have no idea what it feels like to be dragged at those speeds…New York has changed.”
“Since 1840?” Wendell laughed. “Oh yeah, back then there were no cars—that’s what the wheeled wagon is, a car—so a lot has changed since then.”
They were quiet for a minute. Wendell wondered if she realized she was no longer even in New York. He imagined that trying to explain Alaska to a shadow would be like describing a rainbow to a blind man. Suddenly he jumped as a vibrating noise beside him shot into the silence. His cell phone screen lit up. He nearly lurched out of bed reaching for it. His mom. He was supposed to be sleeping, and she knew it. Why would she call?
“Mom?” he affected a sleepy voice.
“Yeah I’m fine, why wouldn’t I be okay? No. Yes. It’s okay. Okay, thanks mom. You too. Night.” He hung up and turned toward Violet.
She was gone. His eyes swept the whole room but the only light was glowing from his cell phone screen.
“Oh, crap,” Wendell realized. He noticed dozens of shadows, including his own, pasted against the walls. “Sorry,” he said into the air, knowing she probably couldn’t hear it.
He let his head fall onto a pillow behind him. His mind raced, but before he knew it, his eyes were snapping open to the alarm sounding, and tiny rays of light were trying to burst the seams of his window shutters. Time for work.
Violet didn’t come for several days. He feared he’d offended her, or that maybe she decided to be someone else’s shadow. He regretted not answering her one question, what she looked like, and ignoring everything but his own questions. So what if he didn’t understand something, did he always have to understand? He could hardly concentrate at work, he couldn’t remember where he’d run that morning, he burned noodles—how do you burn noodles? He reviewed every thing she had said until he stripped it like chicken from its bones. And he ate burned noodles without tasting.
Even more hopeless than being enchanted by a woman, he chewed robotically, would have to be being spellbound by the shadow of a woman. Wendell smacked his forehead with his palm.
Every night he made sure that his phone was under his pillow, that no light was shining in his room, that he couldn’t make out any shadow in the least and saw only blackness before his eyes. And every night that was all he would see. She didn’t come in his dreams either.
Maybe he
was crazy. He had only imagined it; he
had been dreaming and his mom had interrupted the dream when she’d called.
One bright morning, putting his running shoes on his feet, Wendell sat on the chair near the door to his room. His wandering thoughts focused for a moment and his eyes intently watched his hands tie the laces. He had done this before. He slowly turned his head to see out the window into the bright sky. It felt like he almost knew what would happen in the next moments, because it seemed he’d already done it.
“Déjà vu…” He hardly muttered it before he shot into the air and landed on his feet, facing his shadow. His heart raced as he looked at it and wanted to hug it, shake her out, talk to her—oh boy, he was nuts!
All during his run he watched his shadow stretch away from him. He had never paid any attention to his shadow before a couple weeks ago. As he looked at it he was convinced it was a different color from the other shadows. It almost seemed purple. Strange. But other than that, it was a normal shadow. He watched how if he advanced, so would his shadow. If he reached to touch it, he would only touch the ground. The only time it got closer was when the sun rose higher, directly above him. But then it was nearly gone and he didn’t want that either. He noticed how he avoided crossing other shadows as well, just in case. Passersby would surely label him as paranoid, or drunk, but he didn’t care. He was entranced by his Violet shadow.
That night he waited. His room was perfectly black. For endless minutes his hope dragged in the darkness. Almost ready to pass out, he closed his eyes, still sitting up. A soft light began to caress his eyelids. His eyebrows pulled together in hopeful anticipation, but he didn’t want to open his eyes and see nothing.
“Hello,” the syllables fluttered like leaves. His eyes snapped open.
They talked every night until he exhausted his energy and fell asleep. She wouldn’t be there when he woke up, but now she knew to move behind his form before the first light shone, so that she wouldn’t get caught in another form’s shadow, like she had the chair’s. When Wendell had finally sat in the chair she had recognized and merged immediately.
Bedtime could never come soon enough and he fought sleep and fatigue as much as he could, but the effects of the bizarre relationship were beginning to show like sores in the other parts of his life. She never tired, she never aged and she always looked the same. Radiant, beautiful and yet, sad. Years of seeing nothing, why could she see him? The more time he spent with her, the more questions he asked, mostly to himself. But now he listened to her. He wanted to know everything. She couldn’t tell him much about her past, except for feelings, things she had felt as a shadow. And even though she was a shadow, she created light within him. He felt stronger and validated any time they were together. And they were always together, he realized. She was becoming part of him, but he feared to admit it.
One night he took a risk.
“Do you think I could touch you?” he asked.
Her shaded eyes widened and looked away. Her cheeks reddened.
“It’s okay, I won’t. I was just wondering if it were possible.”
“Don’t try,” she whispered. “I should desire that you never let go if it you could touch me.”
She was there every night before he fell asleep, and soon he didn’t mind falling asleep because she would come into his dreams, too. She was even shadow to his thoughts, his imagination. She was becoming everything to him. He couldn’t help it. As long as she was there, he was hers.
He loved that she went everywhere with him. Even though he didn’t see her, he was beginning to learn to feel her influence. Once, he tried an experiment. He walked over various surfaces, his shadow trailing obediently. The sidewalk caused him to feel a little anxious; a body of water made him feel almost desperate so he jumped back quickly and felt an immediate relief; on the paved path in the park he felt kind of bored; and when he crossed onto the grass he sensed a sudden elation, a sort of ticklish happiness. He walked slowly across the grass as he sensed her happiness. He would give her some time on the grass before he ran home.
Violet moved closer. She had never touched him, never even tried. She thought about it constantly, though. His form was clear in the darkness. She still didn’t know how she could see him, but she wasn’t going to question a good thing. It wasn’t like she needed to see his shape though. She had it memorized. It was her life.
He was sleeping peacefully, as he usually did. Tonight she wouldn’t slip into his dreams. It pained her to leave him, but it pained her even more to stay with him. She could never have him. More than worlds separated them. Reality separated them.
Standing up, from her usual position at the chair, she moved to the bed. Without a noise she laid her glowing form beside his sleeping form. His chest rose and fell, steadily like the waves, his breathing like the ocean’s lungs. She ached, knowing that, the closer she got, it would only feel that much colder once she left.
Delicately she placed her head on his shoulder. Fire spread through her form, and swiftly but gently, she pressed her hand to his chest, the cage that held his heart. If somehow she could really touch his heart, would she understand? Why him, why now, what had happened to her, could she reverse it, how?
She closed her eyes, his warmth spreading like water, flooding her ephemeral form. She hadn’t spoken to, seen or felt anyone, yes, but she also hadn’t slept in over a century and half either. By his side, her mind was transported somewhere above her, somewhere to the side, another dimension different even from the land of shadow.
She woke, she returned to the present, when she felt him move. He shifted to his side, breathing deeply and stretching his legs as far as they would reach. His eyes fluttered, and lazily opened. He wasn’t surprised to see her next to him. Maybe he thought he was still dreaming.
She drew her hand to his face and brushed her thumb along his eyebrow. He breathed calmly and closed his eyes again. He blindly reached his hand to her cheek. As soon as he touched her his eyes flicked open. She smiled timidly.
Suddenly Violet had a terrible feeling. She knew the sun was going to shine soon, the chill of her fate began distilling inside her like dew gathering before the dawn, like tears gathering in desperate eyes.
Without a word she stretched her neck and pressed her lips to his. She wished with all her heart that somehow it would be a kiss to magically bring her from shadow back to her true form. The depth of feeling weighed inside her soul heavier than the world. The whole world had a constant shadow, casting millions of eyes and hearts and lungs in darkness for a time. She would orbit endlessly, with the dark side of the globe, in constant shadow. He couldn’t come with her, she couldn’t bear the fact that he would inevitably leave her and she would continue on without him. So she decided to leave before she loved him too much.
She pulled back her face to look one last time into his warm eyes. He closed his eyes, as though he felt the moment was too good to be true. She watched his peaceful look become dark as the light crested the silhouette of his face.
"I'll never forget you," she whispered hopefully, eyes memorizing his features. Then she saw no more.
Wendell opened his eyes and his dreamy smile vanished. His extended hand rested on his pillow and not her cheek. He could have sworn she was just there. He sat up quickly, looking in the direction she had been.
The bed showed no evidence of her form. He looked up, seeing his shadow cast dimly on the wall.
