shadows that spoke (standard:Psychological fiction, 1868 words)
Author: elusive	Added: Oct 06 2004	Views/Reads: 3437/2255	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
shadows follow everywhere............

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story


Just before sundown he decided to walk down to a place he hadn't been to
for a long time.He walked on till sundown,which was a better time of  
the day for him,since his shadow was not so visible,to the place he 
liked the most. It was a huge cricket stadium.He had acquaintances 
there and knew they would let him in for sometime.He  wanted to feel 
like a performer in the middle of the ground.He'd had a secret fantasy 
of becoming a cricketer,or just about anyone who was famous,but his 
health stopped him from pursuing an active career. 

Feeling very light and happy,he made his way to the middle of the ground
and threw his arms up in the air,did an imaginary,dramatic swirl of a 
well-played shot and basked in the bright lights.They were all for him. 
The applause from the audience rang in his ears.Luminas was in the 
spotlight.Then he moved his eyes  towards the five floodlights that 
filled the stadium with it's brilliance.Suddenly he became aware of a 
pressing worry,which made him look down at the turf beneath him and he 
freaked ---five different shadows all around him!! Paranoia took over 
him again. 

The worst part was he did not know if all of them belonged to him,and
which one was his real shadow,was there any real one at all? " Has my 
shadow multiplied itself only to worry me even more? AAAARGHH!! I think 
i'm losing my mind."  One was enough to give him insomnia.How would he 
deal with five different shadows here.His favourite haunt became a 
disastrous place to be in-simply because of  an ugly realisation. 

He turned,and ran as fast as his legs would take him, all the while his
sceptre-like shadows too ran along with him to the pavilion side and 
then made his way out,leaving the five ghosts behind.Out of breath, he 
gingerly looked down again and was somewhat comforted to find just one 
old shadow under him.He willed not to look at it as he paced up the 
sidewalk.He noticed that the pedestrians on the road didn't seem to 
notice their own shadows.They didn't seem to mind.Everyone had a 
shadow,even the tiny cockroach on the wall next to him.Then why aren't 
they worried? 

Lost in his thoughts,Luminas stopped at a cigarette shop for a consoling
smoke.He was trying not to notice the dark objects around him.Today the 
evening shadows had acquired enormous proportions and were out to 
terrorise him.Apart from this,the eve was a normal one,with the usual 
humdrum of street hawkers,vegetable vendors waiting for their final few 
customers,sleepy beggars winding up for the day at street corners and 
the hurried traffic on the road- all bathed in an unreal amber light.He 
found a corner b/w the shop and a ragpicker's cove to enjoy a smoke. 

At least now, the smoking kept his worries at bay,if only for a short
time. Then he turned to look at some animated figure,which demanded his 
attention, next to him.She was a beggar-child in rags,she was engrossed 
in an activity which seemed imaginary and visible only to herself. It 
was absurd to an onlooker.The child raised her tiny arms and held them 
out. then she formed a shape with her fingers, which looked like a 
flower. Luminas watched as the flower slowly turned into a bird and 
gently flapped it's wings as though it was on it's first independant 
flight.Then he saw the metamorphosis from bird to fish, which twitched 
it's fins and swam in imaginary waters.....then he saw the sense and 
the light in that activity . 

It was so beautiful. It was a shadow! The tiny hands cast a dark shadow
on the wall. It came from a  nondescript kerosene lamp stationed next 
to a vegetable vendor.The lamp-light gave form and movement to the 
child's hands.There was that beautiful dark flower again ,that bloomed 
on the wall. Then transformed into a black bird,then into a fish and 
several other forms.The man who hated his shadow was mesmerised as he 
puffed on his cigarette and watched. 

Presently,he dropped it,stubbed it out with his shoe,went close to the
wall,stood next to the child and  nervously brought his hands together 
in front of him. The bird was flying on the wall. The shadow play had 
started and Luminas cupped his hands and made the shadow look like a 
straw nest.The child gently directed the bird towards it, and flapping 
it's wings eagerly,it descended on it's comfortable nest.The bird had 
come home. 

Next, there was a tiny flower on the wall. Next to it a butterfly
emerged.out of it's dormant state. With fresh and delicate wings it 
hovered around the flower in a beautiful ballet-like motion and poised 
itself on the flower.Man and child drowned in the shadow play.They 
didn't mind the tiny group of street people who had gathered around 
them curiously. There was a silent show going on. He felt elated,like a 
performer. 

Then he came out of his reverie and looked tentatively at the eyes the
strangers around him. When his eyes came to rest on the tiny girl's 
eyes, he saw something that looked like conviction mixed with 
satisfaction in them.It took a child's world to convince him of the 
simple pleasures of life.There was faith and contentment in those eyes. 


Luminas's eyes welled up,he felt compassionate towards the little
girl.He realised his folly."I had been so foolish.Shadows are so 
beautiful.My shadow is so beautiful.Maybe I need it because that is the 
only thing that will stay with me till the end. It's been a 
comfort.What I failed to recognise was that the shadow was proving a 
point to me. It proved my physical presence on earth,my existence,my 
visibility,and my worth. 

I was connected with the universe since the day I was born. I shall love
my shadow.I'll speak to it when there's no one to talk to. I'll stage a 
show all by myself with my shadow.I'll have an audience to play to." 
Then there was light! He suddenly saw his shadow in a very different 
light.It was the light of wisdom, of an omnipresent  luminescence. 

And so the man who hated his shadow, grew to love it and earned a lot of
fame and fortune as a shadow artiste. He performed stories with his 
shadow.He created beauty with light and dark shadows on stage.He 
transformed his weakness into strength and beauty,and entertained huge 
audiences.The bird had truly come home and the timid cocooned pupa 
transformed itself into a beautiful butterfly that was finally what it 
was meant to be-free of it's own mental shackles.Naturally Free..... 


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