The Price

YOU NEVER WANT TO CATCH YOUR SHADOW

Peter Pan tried to catch his shadow and have Wendy sew it to his foot. Did you ever wonder why did The Shadow run? Why did Peter want to tie it down? It never happened in the movie.

Your shadow is a shade of who you are—not who you are. Trust me, you don’t want your shadow catching you. Why? Because shades of us aren’t real. They bend and sway with the sunlight, twist to accommodate the angle of the building they are thrown at. They look like us but are odd caricatures. Sometimes, once in a great while, something awful happens…they get a taste for it—this life.

Eric fought it, wrestled, sliced, shot, gouged, all he could do to kill this thing. It doesn’t die. It wants to take over, it wants you to be lazy, tired and worn out. Ready to just slide your head under the water. Once it gets the hunger, it wants this world badly. At least, much more than you do.

It was incessant. It crawled around his mind like a nagging memory of a forgotten task, the oven still on, the cat still outside. It visited him, regularly, every night. This damn thing was punctual.

Eric looked around his room. He could make out the shape of the jackets on the wall which for a moment, looked like a disapproving jury. He agreed with the verdict. The soundtrack tonight is of the fan muttering in the muggy air. He didn’t have to look at the shitty alarm clock to know exactly what time it was.

There was a pregnant pause in the air, akin to a tornado touching down. A stillness, an unnatural quiet when the anguished sounds of the city grew distant. And there it was at the corner of his weariness. It coalesced into existence, like someone walking out of sauna. The darkness gave way to the shape as it pulled free from the corner, free from the half-lit furniture, free from the terror of the dim at the edge of unconsciousness that he no longer had the luxury of. It looked like him but more proper. It stood taller and prouder of trying to be alive. It wanted this life more than he did.

It wasn’t there to harm him as he learned so long ago. It didn’t want to “fight” him, it wanted to take him. It was persistent and always hungry. It wanted to touch his weaknesses with long black fingers and slowly slide into his worries, into his concerns, into those dark parts of his mind that he didn’t dare speak about or acknowledge.

It would sometimes form as a child, or his mother, or his sister. It toyed with him, straining the limits of his sanity. When that didn’t work It took on the faces of all those he had…taken. The Shadow whispered in his ear all night long, “Just let me. Just let me”. There was never peace from this grey doppelganger.

It carried a little black book of great value. Or at least it seemed so as it clutched it tightly while watching him. He could only imagine the contents: death, dates, bribery, etcetera, ad nauseum.

Is this his punishment? To be haunted by this wraith. It never wakes him but like a guilty conscience, it sits and watches and wears down his resolve. He no longer even tries to sleep, it's useless. Endless whispers, slightly imperceptible chattering with accusatory words strewn between the rasp. “Twenty thousand. Twenty….twenty….your soul for 20.” There is no pleading, reasoning, there is no begging for absolution. It waits, it watches, it plots, and it hungers.

Tonight, the Shadow slowly crawls up his arm. It shifts and morphs like fog wrapping around a car trying to escape. It twists grotesque and becomes a shade of a woman it picked out of his mind. He hates when it crawled in there. His memories have long been raped; nothing was sacred. The Shadow solidifies, no longer fog, more real than dream. Miranda tonight…You mother fucker. He tries to ignore her. But she bends over his bed whispering, whispering, whispering, chittering in his ear like a 5-foot-tall cricket. She talks about dying and the sounds that it makes. She talks about those he killed, she talks about his death and cries. Then leans back and screams silently in his face.

He kills her again. Its monotonous at this point but it cuts to the chase. He stabs her through the greyish black throat and cuts off her head. She never fights. But Eric cries for hours after. At the edge of his vision he tries to ignore The Shadow as it sits in the corner of his room on its haunches like a predator and gleefully watches him. Eyes flashing in the darkness. It practically tastes the air while it watches him leak grief. Grinning, smiling, giggling; sometimes even out loud.

Eric stares at his arms in the dark. Half the night crawls by. There’s a knife in his hand, imaginary blood dripping off his forearms. What the fuck did he just do? Nothing? Am I losing it? The Shadow licks its lips in the corner, wringing its hands like a villain in a bad silent film. It never speaks and that silence tests his sanity. The only whispers involve the number 20.

Things are so blurry now. He’s so tired. So worn out. Hours pass and the demon, it just sits there in a squat at the edge of the darker dark. It finally curls around and bends like nothing should and slips into the grey of the wall. Finally, Eric sighs and grabs fitful sleep with both hands and holds tight. The Shadow comes every night. He hasn’t slept in 40 years.

Of course, dawn comes way too fast. It creeps through the blinds like his favorite song. He puts on the eye mask, blocks the light and sits in the worn-out lazy boy with pillow and blanket scavenged from the bed. The AC unit in it the window hums to life. It’s the most expensive thing he owns. He needs it to sleep through the daylight and heat. The sun is now coming through the blinds now as a force, torching all shadows in the room. The AC unit attains a perfect 70 degrees. He pops a sleeping pill and willingly, happily, drifts from this shore.

He wakes around 5 pm as the drugs wear off and hunger starts ringing the bell. His morning routine begins when regular people are just getting home from work. The soles of his shoes hit the street at dusk. In the back of his mind, he knows who will be there waiting for him tonight.

He doesn’t drink a beer with the others, but he checks his watch. He has a date; he needs to go. It’s 1:36 in the morning, and while their night is ending, his night is just starting. Hurried steps home don’t fool the shadows in the alley ways and streets. He can feel them quiver with anticipation. “Just let me”, they whisper and tell secrets excitedly. And that’s when he sees it, the black book. Lying in the street like a trap. It’s the same one, he’s certain of it. Without missing a step his bends to tie his shoe next to the book and picks it up deftly. The shadows giggle and quiver like the mob in ancient Rome. He walks determined with destination and glances into the book. No names. No dates. He thumbs through every page and they have written on them “20K”.

Anger tilted, he stops and looks around at the dark evil of the alleyway, their hungry masturbating tendrils crawl across the bricks. He tosses the book aside, pulls the black bladed knife from the small of his back and takes three steps back into the shadows which envelope him like a mother’s arms and he’s gone. Only inky black smoke betrays his passage. It curls like food dye in water. No sound as he crosses over into the grey. He grins but doesn’t fear the betrayal; light barely bounces off his teeth in here. He too can laugh from the shadows.