Just Me and My Shadow

By Cleve Sylcox

01/10/2012

My house is full of shadows. Some long and with drawn, others short and stubby. I watch them in the daylight as they move across the parlor floor. Peculiar are shadows sometimes as they take on the likeness of things, a horses head or a cat. It all depends on the suns position, the clouds and the resolute of my imagination. Dark shadows attached to the things which block the sun lack the imaginative powers of subconscious projection. A shadow of a hand for instance looks like a hand in the bright sunlight or the rays from a lamp. Those types of shadows do not inspire my imagination for they lack mystery. Then, there are the shadows I see from time to time that vaguely lay upon the parlor floor or stand distinctly on my bedroom wall, in the light from a nearby streetlight. Those dark shadows propel my imagination into believing there is more here than we can see.

One day I was in my parlor and saw a shadow move across room, from the front corner, nearest the door where the sun never fully reaches, across the hardwood floor to the opposite corner of the room. It was a vague shape with no distinct features to tell what cast it. It simply glided across the room from one shadow to the next. I told my husband, Alvin about it, and he just shrugged it off as another one of my imaginative attempts for attention.

 “Gertrude,” he said, “you spend too much time alone. Those shadows you refer to are caused by the, Milk Buggy. It has that shiny coat of paint, and the horses’ bridals have that silvery clasp that reflects the sun. As they pass the reflections cause bright illuminations, which cast phantom shadows, which seem to drift across the room like ghost.”

Alvin, is a very smart man, non-imaginative, non-believing in the after life, always finding a realistic answer to all of my shadows. He keeps me sane.

I saw those illuminations he speaks of just this morning. They are quite different from those shadows I see. Accompanying them, as they dance their way across the room, are bright glowing sheens glaring off the paint and horses clasp. The sound of the horses clopping and the occasional nay, also adds a difference.

No, my shadows move in silence and are not accompanied by sheens of light. They make no noise. Most of all they appear at all times of day and night without the need of a shinny coat of paint.

What ever they are they move when they want. They seek shelter in the shadows of rooms where light seldom, if ever, reaches.

So, since I cannot convince dear Alvin of my shadowy friends I will sit here with them and be entertained by their movements. Who knows, one day I may join them in a game of hide and seek.