by Sunil MS
I work on the threads when she isn’t looking. Then again, she hardly looks.
How did it begin: the slow, certain, obvious death of all that we had between us? How did I accept this idea of death that was inevitable? Wasn’t I scared? I was, until my moment of epiphany. It was a bright sunny day and I was walking next to her when I asked myself – what does a shadow have to fear?
The process of detachment is painful. Mostly because I lack the knowledge of how I came to be her shadow, who sewed me to her, or worse, how I became entangled to her existence. It’s like trying to dismantle a working clock without disturbing the time. At some point, you stop and ask yourself if time really cared. What is the purpose of this clock then? I will tell you. It’s merely to show the existence of time.
I realised I was not the only shadow with these questions, although I seem to be the only one to have arrived at the answers. I have met a lot of shadows, mostly because she is afraid to be alone. If only she knew she was never lonely. She only had to look down at the ground. But her eyes were always searching, and she took me along to find those who would take her away from me, people who took her into their world, its distractions, and showed her poor imitations of happiness behind glass cases.
On particularly lonely days, when she is with another man, I remember those times when we were younger. We would play hopscotch along with her friends on sunny afternoons. We would jump in little square boxes. I would see her looking down at me, her lips stretched out wide in joy. I mirrored that happiness.
These days, she sits under these countless yellow light bulbs in some pub or another, looking into the eyes of unknown men. And I lie on the ground, split into countless shades of myself. Some darker, some faint, like the shades of the night.
Sorrow brings a profound sense of self-consciousness. More than joy ever can. Because happiness never demands answers. It’s not the same in suffering, especially if it’s the suffering of abandonment. Consciousness through questions. And I had plenty of those. Was I an important part of her or was I just an object to know the hour of the day, like the clock, a tool?
Every night, I would ask myself the same questions and work on the threads when she wasn’t looking. And I’ve noticed that every question that begins with a ‘why’, never has answers. Given most of these questions remain unanswered, one must ask a final question – why do I suffer?
She’s asleep now and I sit at her feet working on the threads, hiding in the darkness all around. My fingers take hold of a thread and pull at it. She moves her feet and I stop breathing, wondering if she felt an itch. After a moment, they are still again. I realise she is dreaming.
Often on these nights, while I am sleepless and busy untangling, I wonder if I am part of her dreams. Does she see me sitting next to her on the beach? Or when she is wearing her new white shoes? Does she ever dream of those days of hopscotch? Or if she is always dreaming of her work or men or both?
I remember a dream I had once had. It was a simple dream and it’s my most beautiful memory. We were in our room, a little drunk, and there was music. There was yellow light in the room, emanating from a light bulb on the white wall. She got to her feet and pulled me along with her and we began to sway to the music. She had just begun to learn Salsa. So she began moving her feet to practice. It was just us, half drunk, looking at each other, mirroring a sense of warmth and a lot of love. We moved around the room to the music, to each other’s presence. We danced for hours. And when the music stopped, she turned off the lights and we went to bed, embracing each other in that comforting darkness, when we would become one.
Now, even though there is the same darkness around, I sit at her feet, working on the threads, hoping to escape her presence.
I would soon be without a home, that place where her feet touch the ground. I would soon unentangle myself from her and, for the first time, run without her will. And my heart races at the thought of it. I don’t know if it’s because I secretly fear freedom or if I am exhilarated by its promise.
Freedom. It’s a myth for us shadows. My being has been attached to her for as long as I can remember. I have never known my life without her in it. I don’t have a memory of a time when I was sitting all by myself on a beach watching the sun set, lost in the darkness of the night. I don’t recall a bright sunny day when I walked down a street without being stomped upon by her. I wonder if she ever had the same thought: if she will ever be free of me. Then again, I know she hardly thinks of me.
I think this is how humans feel when they realise that this universe, the reason for their existence, is indifferent to them. Always has been. They long for freedom and yet at the same time, long to be seen. I guess nobody ever ‘sees’ anything or anyone, least of all the universe. Is this why I long to escape her? When she looks at the ground, am I just a blind spot?
In a few hours, the daylight will be here as I continue to unentangle and ramble on. I will be carved out of this darkness and restored to her beautiful shape. She will open her eyes and see the light, her cell phone, her face in the mirror, her clothes, her shoes, her computer, her drink, her men and their naked bodies.
I am tired of these visions.
So I will go on working on these threads, unentangling them one by one. And I hope, one of these nights, I will be holding the last thread and pull at it and feel my feet tear themselves off hers. I imagine stepping off this bed and my feet touching the ground, my body standing erect. Perhaps it will hurt in the beginning. I may reel from a sense of what they call vertigo. But I will hold my ground. My ground. I will take a step, another and then another. And I would run and run and run. I will not stop till my legs buckle.
I imagine days without her. I think of my future. Would she notice my absence? I know she won’t until when someone points to the ground next to her, screaming in horror. I imagine her screaming too and, a moment later, shrugging her shoulders, saying, ‘So what? I will get a new one.’
I wonder if it’s possible to find a new shadow for oneself. I wonder if shadows can ever become free.
Picture by Sunil MS
