Shadowloss - Part 2/7

Sneaky bastard

This is Part 2 of “Shadowloss,” a 7-part novella about a man who loses his shadow. If you missed Part 1, go read that first.

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[Est. reading time: 9 minutes]

By the time I made it back home, I had convinced myself that the phantom shadow in the park was an aberrant psychological reaction to the one-two punch of finding out Kat was cheating on me and losing my job. Like seeing spots when you stand up too fast. I realize that's not a good analogy for actual psychosis but hey, I was grasping at straws. What else did I have?

Kat didn't come home from work, and now I was pretty sure I knew the real reason. Meanwhile, I still had three large, untrained dogs to take care of, if only to avoid the charge of animal cruelty. At some point, I finally got them to stop barking in the too-small backyard.

Then it was just me and the quiet house. I had no desire to watch TV, or play games. And I doubted I'd be able to sleep. So I sat down at our custom-built wooden table with which we had furnished our otherwise unfurnished dining room, in one of three folding chairs that were serving as placeholders for the real chairs that had been on backorder for six months.

I must have slept, though, because I woke up in a dark room with a mean snag in my neck. Kat was presumably still in "class."

I had to get out of that house. The dogs started barking their hearts out as soon as I opened the front door, but I didn't turn around. I needed to walk. They'd tire themselves out eventually. Neighbors be damned.

There weren't many lights on my street, and it might have been the third or fourth one I passed under before I noticed I didn't have a shadow. Not even a trace of one.

It stopped me cold at first. I looked around, waved my arms, bent over, tracked the trajectory of the rays of light, but...nothing. I swear it felt like I'd suddenly gone invisible. You don't know how much your shadow helps you feel corporeal until it's gone.

First thing I did is I sprinted to the next pool of light down the street, feeling a sort of nauseated uncertainty as to whether I was awake or dreaming, just hoping that I'd find my shadow where it belonged under the next lamp.

No such luck.

Tough to articulate the dizzying horror I felt as I twisted and turned to try to catch a glimpse of what wasn't there. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I pitched back into the darkness and sat on the curb with my eyes closed. Rocking back and forth like a lunatic.

Panic doesn't last forever though. After it had burned itself out, I thought I better go ahead and call someone. Kat? Hell no. Suds? Right, also no.

The thing about being in a bad marriage -- sometime between getting fired and now, I had finally admitted that's what it was -- is that you lose your friends. Chronic unhappiness takes up a lot of energy. Or maybe I was just lazy. Probably I could have kept up with some of the people I'd hung out with a lot before Kat and I tied the ugly knot. But I didn't.

So I did what lots of people do when they find themselves friendless and in need. I turned to my family. Not my parents -- they loved Kat, and there was no way I was ready to navigate that conversation. Plus, if I'm being totally honest (why not?), I was deeply embarrassed about the getting fired part.

That left my sister, Thea. I hadn't talked to her in at least a few months, but we were blood, and she was always after me for not calling more often. Of the two of us, she was the really successful one. Not even thirty, and she was climbing the ladder at some fancy law firm out in Chicago. I didn't really understand her job, but I did understand that she made a lot of money doing it.

Of course she didn't answer. It was one in the morning, which would make it 3am for her. She'd call me back as soon as she woke up. Which might be in two hours, as I thought I about it. Thea was the kind who went for a run, took a shower, and made herself an egg white omelette before most people realized it was morning. Hell of an act to follow, I'll tell you.

I hoped it wouldn't be more than two hours.

In the meantime, I slunk back to my house, avoiding the light, and managed to get back inside and crawl into bed without sending the Odies into another barking fit.

Kat didn't even come home.

Uncharacteristically, I woke up with the sun. I wanted to hide under the covers and go back to sleep, but some part of me couldn't resist the urge to check and see if my shadow had come back. After all, maybe it was just a nightmare -- still bad, frankly, but not as bad as the clear and present experience of losing my mind.

So I sat up and started hunting for where my shadow ought to be. The fact that it was hard to find was a red flag, but I was groggy, and my eyes stung, and I wasn't going to freak out over nothing, so I made my way to the window and shoved the curtains open all the way. The sun hadn't come up yet, but there was plenty of dawn light flooding into the room now. I could see the vague shadows of my bedposts, my dresser.

But none for me.

My heart pounded as I waved my arms around and swooped around the room, succumbing to the wild rhythms of my mounting mania.

Then a slice of sun sharpened all the other shadows, and the absence of my own was absolutely incontrovertible. I stood there, staring at the wall where my body should have blocked the light from the window, but it was as though I wasn't there.

And then, oh...and THEN he showed up, the bastard. Slid into place as casual as you please. This is the point at which I truly freaked out. Just full on panic. That base instinct of a hunted prey washing away higher human volition. I shouted some kind of scream as a I hit the floor, then scrambled out the door.

If "running from your own shadow" is a euphemism for cowardice, then I have never been more of a coward then I was at that moment. The dogs barked their thick, bony heads off as I tore around my empty house, scrambling around corners, shoving off walls, knocking things over. I was out of my mind.

At some point, my survival lizard brain got the clever idea of shutting myself in a dark closet. No light, no shadow. The nearest one to me was the coat closet by the front door that never got used for coats because Los Angeles. Instead, I found myself sharing a tight space with a vacuum cleaner, a broom, and a bunch of collapsed boxes from Amazon.

The important thing was that it was dark.

It would be inaccurate to say I came to my senses. It would be more accurate to say that the spike in my adrenaline finally ebbed enough for me to be able to slow the hyperventilation, and start thinking about what the hell might be going on.

"You've suffered a traumatic event," I told myself. "Kat is cheating on you. You lost your job. It's a lot of stress."

See? Totally reasonable. So what now?

"I just need...s'more sleep." Yes, I was talking out loud in that closet. You would have done the same thing. It helped calm me down. Not enough to leave that dark closet and face the light and shadow, but still.

"I just have to make a plan for what to do next."

Like getting rid of those damn dogs, or maybe moving out of this house and letting Kat figure out what to do with them while she went off fucking some other guy.

"Reg?" I heard the door to the garage shut. That would be Kat, finally returned. "Honey, where are you? The Odies are shouting at the whole neighborhood. Have you fed them yet?"

I heard somewhere anger is just a more useful manifestation of fear. Can. Confirm.

Kat rounded the corner and pulled up short just as I stepped out.

"What are you doing?" she asked, an accusation in her voice.

"I'm leaving you. And your dogs."

"Wh--" she shook her head, trying, I imagine, to tune out the relentless barking. "What are you talking about?"

My wallet and keys were still on the dresser next to the bed where I'd left them. I would have to walk pass Kat to go get them before I could make my grand exit.

"You're cheating on me," I said.

Some of the offense drained out of her posture. "How'd you get that idea?"

My boss stalked you and got video proof, showed it to me yesterday, then fired me? No thank you.

"Deny it," I said, impressed at my ability to maintain composure. Feeling all kinds of righteous indignation. Feeling even like all that barking was on *my* side, goddammit, demanding justice.

She thought about it. I could see the gears turning. This was a very stressful corner to be backed into. I would have felt bad if I wasn't so drugged with compensatory rage.

"It's not--" she started, then swallowed it back and tried again. "It doesn't mean anything."

"Oh, okay then," I said, and finally walked passed her, snatching furtive glances at my shadow as it crossed over hers.

"Reg," she said, but I didn't stop, so she followed me. "Reg, can we talk about this? I fucked up. I know."

I was not above twisting the knife by staying silent as I grabbed a backpack from the closet to haphazardly collect the things I'd need to survive for a few days anywhere other than this house.

"Please, Reg, let's talk. I'm sorry. OK? Jesus. You don't have to do this."

I didn't even look up at her, letting the incessant dog chorus answer. When I grabbed my wallet and my keys, and started back toward the door, she changed tactics.

"OK, wait a minute. You can't pretend you didn't have anything to do with this. You think I want to be married to someone who plays video games all day?"

The urge to fight back was powerful, but I wanted to get out even more, so I resisted.

"I'm sorry, but come on. Don't you at least owe it to yourself to have some ambition?"

OK, I'm all done with that scene. The things she said, it's hard to tease the reality out of them. Maybe there was some truth, maybe not. The way I remember it is I had plenty of ambition before I found myself spending all my nights alone. But maybe that’s my bias. It's amazing that after everything that has happened, those words still come back so clear, and sting so much.

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Continue to Part 3…