Art by Jen Watt
My Shadow and I
by Paula Bauer
We play this game, my shadow and I.
“Tag, you’re it!” she’ll cry.
It’s fun, at first. Everything about her is really rather brilliant. I mean, who else can say they’re best friends with their shadow?
“What’s it like?” I ask, lying in bed, one hand idly tracing along the wall. Back and forth, back and forth.
“What’s what like?”
“Being a shadow.”
She laughs. It’s strange, yes. It reverberates through me, like a second heartbeat. Just that tiny fraction out of sync with my real one. But I love it. I love feeling that she’s there, deep inside of me. Better than touch.
“Being a shadow is exactly what it sounds like.”
“Magical and mysterious?”
“Dark and boring.”
This time it’s me who laughs. I close my eyes, unwilling to look at the black, blank surface that is my shadow’s head. I hate that there’s no face. She has so much personality, so much expression. And yet, looking at her, she’s…well, a shadow. Of herself as much as me.
“Nice. Dark,” I say, and she laughs again.
“You know I can’t resist a play on words, darling.” If she had a face, she would’ve winked, I’m certain. “No, seriously, it’s…relaxing, sometimes. Boring, a lot of the time. Frustrating, occasionally.” She shrugs. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Hm. I think I get it. Nothing’s great all the time.”
“No, it’s not.”
I open my eyes just in time to see her jump from one wall to the other.
“I do very much enjoy this, though. Hanging out with you,” she adds.
“You’d better,” I grumble playfully. “It’d be a right shame if my best friend hated spending time with me.”
She stops mid-jump and tosses her hair. My hair. Our hair.
“Aw, I’m your best friend?”
I roll my eyes. “You know you’re my best friend, idiot.”
She sketches a bow before continuing to jump this way and that. She always moves, hates standing still.
“I collect best friends, you know,” she says flippantly.
“Oh, you do? So I’m one of many then?” I grin.
“Just another one in a long, long line,” she jokes back.
I think about her all the time. Partly because I know that somehow, she’s always there. My shadow never leaves me, even if I can’t see her. It’s my shadow, after all.
But it’s more than that. I’ll be with a group of friends, and I know exactly which jokes she’d laugh at, and which of her laughs it would be. The high-pitched, surprised one; the rolling one that comes from the back of her throat; the quiet, genuine one.
Most of the time, especially when I’m with other people, my mind is split in two. A part will concentrate on who is really there. The other part imagines my shadow there with me. It creates this alternate reality, where she’s not just my shadow, but a real person. Her own person. Laughing and talking as a part of our group.
I talk about her so much, my other friends must hate me.
She’s the one I want around when I’m upset, to tell her every random thought that pops into my head. I want her opinion, her advice, her help. It doesn’t even matter what on. Anything, everything.
When I don’t see her for a longer time, this pressure will appear, pushing down on my chest. It’s harder to smile. Difficult to enjoy myself. Difficult to think of anything but her.
What is she thinking about right now?
Is her life that little bit worse when I’m not there?
Is she missing me too?
Maybe a few weeks after I realise that I’d rather spend time with her than my other friends, she suggests playing a game. We’re in my flat. It’s relaxed and comfortable. And I’m just so…warm. I feel settled, deep in my bones. I guess it’s simply that I’m happy. Content. Exactly where I want to be.
I honestly don’t think I’ve ever felt like that before.
“What game?” I ask. She’s already on her feet in front of me, jumping up and down. I can feel the glee and excitement radiating off her. If she had a mouth, she’d be grinning. Groaning quietly, I lift myself into a sitting position.
“Tag,” she says.
“Tag? As in ‘Tag, you’re it’?”
She nods, gesturing energetically at me to get to my feet. Of course she always gestures very exaggeratedly, to make up for the lack of facial expressions. But this is extreme, even for her. She must be really keen on the game.
I can’t stop the frown forming, even as I stand. “I’m not sure. How are we even supposed to play? Chase each other across my room?”
But my darling shadow only clicks her tongue. “Please. Don’t you trust me? This will be fun, I promise!”
“Trusting you is not the same as you having good taste in games,” I complain. But we both know that I’ll do whatever she wants. Her shoulders tilt a little, though, so I know she’s giving me a look.
“Fine, fine. So what, I run after you and when my hands pass through your upper body we’ll switch?”
“Essentially.”
“Sounds like fun,” I mutter.
“Oh, it will be,” she replies.
Honestly, I can’t see how, but who knows. Bending my knees, pulling my arms up over my head, I start fake-stretching and shoot her a look.
“You ready to go, then?”
“Yes! Remember, my legs don’t count, cause they’re attached to you.”
“Christ, just start running!”
I can hear her grin. And before I can say anything else she throws me a wave and elongates across the room. Her black form is on the wall, hair bouncing up and down as she does the same. Deciding I might as well take this as seriously as I can, I leap. My arms are outstretched, ready to grab her, but at the last second she dances out of my reach. Laughing, I follow after her. Before I know it, I’m jumping and lunging, pushing a chair out of the way and hurtling myself over the back of my sofa, breathing heavily.
“This is not fair! How am I supposed to catch my shadow?” I huff after another failed attempt, the stitch in my side humbling. But then my shadow is laughing, taunting me and coming closer in doing so. Quick as a flash I fling my arm out, surprising her, and catch her through the chest.
“Tag, you’re it,” I hear myself say.
“No, you’re it,” she replies with a quiet laugh. A laugh that burrows into my bones, hooks itself into the very back of my brain and stretches and pulls to the point of pain.
My hand starts to prickle. Starts to burn, like I caressed the leaves of a stinging nettle.
But I’m not scared. I’d trust her with my life.
So there’s just curiosity. And excitement. I watch with fascination as my own hand starts to flicker, as it starts to lose colour and grows darker and darker. The burning stops. Weightlessness takes its place. I’m floating. Free. I’ve never felt so light in my entire life, I can hear myself laughing from afar. The burning climbs up my arm, as more and more of me bleeds into dark. I want to somersault through the air. Fly up and up, through the sky, all the way to touch the stars. I could, I’m certain of it. In that moment, I could do anything.
Until I can’t.
I can’t move. There’s nowhere to go. I’m stuck.
I’m stuck.
I can’t move. My heart speeds up, I try to yank my arm back, but there’s nothing there to pull back from. I can barely feel the burning anymore, I try to concentrate and search for it, but I’m not sure. Has it reached my stomach, is it running down my legs? Everything feels disconnected, I can’t tell where my legs even are.
“What…what is…what is happening?” I push the words out past my lips, everything too heavy and too light at the same time. My voice sounds strangely hollow, not like me at all. It echoes and goes on for so long, I’m not sure I even stopped speaking.
I try to find my shadow’s gaze with mine. My heart stops. Usually, it’s dark and endless. Now, bright blue eyes are staring back at me. My eyes. Long lashes flutter up and down, pupils widen ever so slightly before they narrow. A smile curves my lips, except it’s sly and one-sided and not like any smile I’ve ever worn.
Then they open, and I can hear my voice saying: “Catch me if you can, darling.” Her laugh, my laugh, sounds through the room, there and gone again the moment she stops. A normal, human laugh.
And then she takes a step. My legs lurch forward, I’m stretched away, pain and panic lashing up and down and through me. I can’t stop it, I can’t get away. I try, I try to leave, but I’m attached to her, to me.
I want to cry, to scream. What is she doing to me? What is going on?
She comes closer again, leans forward and whispers into my ear: “I know this is hard. So I’ll be kind. I’ll let you catch me again. But remember: it won’t always be this easy.”
Something solid is placed into my shoulder. It reaches in, finding the weightless part of me, and holds on tight.
The burning is back.
After a few moments, a single, wet tear runs down my face.
I try to get my legs to move faster, try to stretch myself further. Push past the lightness, then past the cage that keeps it all trapped. Grow wider, larger, taller, fast enough to catch my shadow. My body, the shadow who is now me. I need to catch her. I need to get back to myself.
“You’re such a slowpoke,” she teases, her voice so much like mine. Except it isn’t mine, it’s different, and I can’t tell how. Can anyone else? Has she even talked to other people like me? It’s hard to keep track.
“Please,” I say. Speaking is so difficult, I know it comes out wrong. It’s pushing sound past boulders and up hills. “Slow down.”
Laughter reaches my ears.
I don’t have ears.
“That wouldn’t be part of the game,” she says.
She’s always moving, always just out of reach. Shouldn’t I be able to just slink back into myself? I’m her shadow. But every time I try, she moves again, and I can’t keep track of myself. My body, my shell, gets yanked somewhere else, and it’s all I can do to fight against the cage. To keep it from forcing me where I don’t want to go.
I keep trying.
Her - my - heart is beating inside my chest. One moment it’s calm, suddenly it’s racing. Banging against my ribcage, hard enough to bruise. I’m back. I’m me.
I pry my eyes open as fast as I can, turning my head, panic clawing through me. Is she here? How long do I have? How long was I gone? It’s cold outside, we’re in the park. A half-sob escapes me as I see the clouds. No sun. No shadow. Something in my chest caves in and the tears start falling.
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to play anymore. I want it all to go back to how it was before. Sobs rack my body, wrecking me, I can’t breathe. Folding in on myself, I wrap my arms around my stomach, blinking against the tears .
Crouching on the ground, I put my fist into my mouth and start to scream.
Loud. It startles a nearby blackbird into flight. The scream goes on and on, until the sobs take over again.
I’m shaking. I just can’t stop the shaking.
Without waiting I jump to her - my - feet, push the metal chair I’m sitting on back so hard it topples over and sprint away from the table. My friends call after me, but I don’t care, don’t listen. I just run. Run as fast as I can, the muscles in my legs straining and starting to burn. My - her - heart starts racing, I almost stumble but catch myself, it’s not her, it’s just the running, it’s normal, it’s not her. So I keep going.
I run as fast as I can, as hard as I can. I’m not even sure where I am, I dodge cars, weave in and out of crowds. Shoulders jostle mine, angry exclamations follow me, but I don’t care. I keep going on and on and on. Until my legs feel as weak as jelly. Until the stitch in my side is a fiery poker. Until my lungs scream. Until I can’t get a breath down properly.
Still I don’t stop. I keep moving, keep running. Just don’t stop.
It’s so difficult to move. I can’t believe she never told me how hard it was. Every step in another direction than her, every head I shake that she keeps still takes effort. So much effort, that sometimes it’s just easier not to. That sometimes, just so I can catch my breath, I don’t even try to chase her. I move with her, relax into shadowing her.
No. Something inside me constricts, stops me dead.
Me. I’m shadowing me.
No.
No, I can’t relax. I can’t let her win, she’s me. I strain against the cage around me, doubling my efforts, fighting against the barriers that I can’t see or even really feel but that are there nonetheless. Am I trying to convince myself that I cannot give up, or am I trying to show her? I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I stretch myself, reaching out farther, push myself even more. Sweat should pool on my forehead, but of course it can’t, and then my fingers curl around her - my - hand. Fingers interlacing.
For now, I can still catch her.
“Why are you doing this?” I cry.
It’s dark outside. The only light coming into my room is from the sliver of moon that shines in the cloudless sky. But moonlight is fine. Moonlight is not much light, so she’s barely there, flickering in and out of existence. Insubstantial enough that I feel a little safer than normal.
I’m staring around the room wildly, desperate for an answer.
“I thought we were friends! I thought-” I wipe at my cheeks angrily, with those always trembling hands. They don’t ever stop. “I thought you were my best friend! But you do this, you…” I scream when I see movement from the corner of my eye, spin around, she’s there, I jump back and she’s gone again.
“You’re stealing my life!” I shout. “You’re hunting me, you’re trying to be me!”
“Trying?” I hear her voice echo, and I scream again. Hair is in my eyes, tears keep running down my face, no matter how much I try to stop them.
“Why? You were everything to me! I did everything for you! So why…”
“Why? Do you like it, darling?” Her voice is as sharp as a knife. “Do you like living in the shadow, becoming less and less of a person? Did you think it was fun for me, hanging out with you and just you?”
My sight is blurry as I whisper: “I thought you were my friend.”
Her laugh is an ugly thing. It sets my teeth on edge, even as the sudden surge of helplessness in the face of her coldness and disdain threatens to overwhelm me completely. It’s even worse than the panic, the fear, the anger.
The only thing left is to shout. To shout as long as I still can.
“You were my best friend! So stop! Just stop!”
The sun comes out. My - her - heart starts racing.
My friend is still talking, but their face and voice blur, then vanish into unimportance. The blood rushing through my ears is the only thing I can hear. My - her- eyes scan the floor desperately, the table, every surface, looking for a hand that reaches.
She’s all that matters. Is she here? Is she coming?
I’m almost relieved when I feel the familiar burning start.
And so it goes.
We play our game.
We chase each other across our room. We chase each other across streets, across the whole city. We catch each other in the underground, in cafés, at our flat. At the park, in a church, at a restaurant. Sometimes it takes forever, sometimes the chase feels like it’s almost over. Until we start again. It doesn’t ever end.
There’s no place we leave each other in peace. It doesn’t matter if we’re at university, at our job, with our friends or alone. Not that we have many friends left. She tries to stay in contact more than me. She makes sure we go to work more than me. Really, she does all of it more than me. I’m barely hanging on. She’s more me than I am.
Her - my - our - eyes open. I feel heavy. But at least I’m free. Rain’s beating down onto the leaves of trees, forcing them towards the ground. Our - her - legs give out underneath me and I sink to the floor. It’s my room. Everything is still the same. Everything is so different. I’ve no strength left to check if she’s coming for me. I know she’ll be there soon, catching me, no matter what I do. There’s no escaping her.
I’m losing.
About the author:
Paula Bauer is doing her Masters degree in Book- and Media Science at the LMU university in Munich, Germany. Before that she was apprenticed to a bookbinder and created books from scratch for three years. So books, along with travelling and chocolate, have always played an important part in her life. This is her first foray into writing short stories.
