Do we control our shadows, or do our shadows control us? And what if our shadows could do a better job of living our lives?
I had this idea bouncing around in my head for quite some time before I finally penned it for my dark fiction collection Rolling The Bones: 12 Tales of Life, Death, Loss, & Redemption—which comprises 8 short stories, 3 novellas, and a short novel—and it quite unexpectedly became one of my favorite stories in the book, exuding a sort of mysterious “Twilight Zone” atmosphere that I really like—somewhat different from much of my other work.
So, believing that A Bearable Darkness is one of the better stories in that collection, and is not available as a single on Kindle, I wanted to share it—so I decided to publish it here (as I did with Hell or High Water and Request Denied). And a bonus: you can download the ebook for free here!
I hope y’all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
NOTE: For anyone who may be interested, I’ve published more of my fiction under the category My Fiction.
“Fear no shadows, least of all that great spectre of personal
unhappiness which binds half the world to orthodoxy.”
~ Thomas Huxley
A Bearable Darkness of Being
“Jeff, you can’t live the rest of your life being afraid of your own shadow,” Mortensen said, his beady eyes peering over the top of his bifocals, looking at me in the condescending way that he always does.
That was when I ended the sessions.
My old man used to say the same exact thing—usually right after I came running in the house crying, having been picked on by one or more of the local bullies—and right before he beat the living shit outta me. Or sometimes, if his drinking was bad—which it was, more often than not, there toward the end—right before he made me his bitch.
…your mother left, the ungrateful cunt, so you’re the bitch of the house now…hell, you look enough like her…and you’re such a pantywaste when it comes to being a man and standing up for yourself, you might as well BE a bitch…now get your skinny little ass over here…
Whenever he started undoing his belt, I never knew which way it would end; a simple good lashing was always my hope—even if it drew blood.
That was way better than the alternative, anyway.
I’d been seeing this shrink, Dr. Mortensen, for a few weeks, at this clinic called Silver State Social Services—one of those state-subsidized rehab places that they send you to instead of prison, if you’re lucky—and I figured if the state was gonna pick up the tab, I should as least try.
And I did try. I really did. I thought if this guy could just turn the right screw, find that loose nut in my head and tight en’er back up—then voilà! I’d be fixed.
We were discussing my decision-making abilities (or, more properly, lack thereof). He was explaining to me how, when making a decision, we first consider all the possible factors beforehand, then make the decision and take action, then later assess the results—and adjust our new decisions and actions accordingly. That it’s all sort of a meandering process, and we have to constantly correct course to keep ourselves on track to our goals.
He told me that healthy people, when assessing the results of their decisions and actions, understand that if the results aren’t exactly what wanted, then they shouldn’t consider them wrong, but simply—and, inevitably—different than what they had expected or hoped for. And that this is normal. The results never turn out to be exactly what we had intended; best we can hope for is something close.
But “unhealthy” people (I knew what he really meant was fucked-up people, like me), rather than viewing the results of their decisions and actions as simply different from what they had expected or hoped, instead view them as wrong.
So they berate themselves, thinking that once again they made the wrong decision, did the wrong thing, fucked up, and got the wrong results. Keep up this trend, and over time we become afraid to make any decision whatsoever, since every single damn time everything ends up wrong, or fucked up.
But I wasn’t buying it.
After all, my mom slowly picking herself up off the kitchen floor, bruised and bleeding and crying (again), and then quietly disappearing that night, never to be seen or heard from again, was not my decision.
And me taking her place wasn’t my decision, either.
And, come to think of it—neither was getting my ass kicked practically every day when I got off the school bus way down the street. And then getting it kicked again when I got home…
So I thought he was full of shit, really. But whatever.
But then his little wisecrack about me being afraid of my own shadow ended everything. Suddenly, there I was, sitting scared and vulnerable in front of my old man, all over again.
I almost expected Doc to start unbuckling his belt…
No way. Not this time. Not ever again.
I’m old enough now to make my own decisions—and, as he says, deal with the results; and so my decision, at that moment, was to stand up, walk out of his office, and never go back.
Next few days, I ignored his phone calls, deleted his voice mails without bothering to listen to them. Figured it probably wouldn’t be long before my probation officer would be calling, so I needed to figure something out.
Meantime, I’m just focused on surviving, and that’s it.
My life has become mostly a blur. Sometimes it’s the tears; sometimes it’s the booze. But mostly, it’s just my life; nothing’s ever clear, nothing ever makes much sense to me. Everything always seems to just blur together.
If nothing else, at least I have a job. Mostly part time, over at Frank’s car wash.
Turns out Frank is a recovering alcoholic—or drug addict, not sure which, maybe both—and so works with Silver State, along with other rehab centers and halfway houses, giving part-time, low-stress, low-responsibility jobs to people who are trying to get their heads on straight and start over, and can’t get a job anywhere else. For us, it’s a second chance—last chance, for some—and it sure as hell beats going to prison.
And Mortensen himself is in the program too. Guess he fell down pretty hard when he first moved here from Montana (talk about culture shock, huh?). What I hear, his wife had just died of cancer, and so he started coming here to forget about things for awhile. He liked it, so he eventually moved here. But then he got hooked into the gambling scene and all that free booze these Las Vegas casinos like to pour down your throat to loosen up your wallet, and—well, he fell down.
Hard.
So he got himself into the program, got himself cleaned up, and now he works with guys like Frank to get guys like me into jobs like this.
And it’s a decent program, y’ask me—though I’ve noticed, believe it or not, that most the people who come in through the program don’t make it very long. Sooner or later they come in drunk, or high, or get caught stealing or some shit. Or, most often, just stop showing up—I don’t know, back on the streets I guess. Or in jail, or the hospital, or who knows. Maybe dead.
It’s a revolving door, really.
So Mortensen hooked me up with a job with Frank, and so far, I’ve been able to keep it up. It’s not bad—easy work, light schedule. Doesn’t pay much, but I get tips too, which is good, cuz they’re off the books, which keeps my reported down to where it’s enough to pay my rent, with a little left over—but not so much that I risk losing my Section Eight. Good thing, too, cuz I’d never be able to afford a regular place. And besides, the people…normal people? I don’t need any of that.
I like it where I’m at.
And I can party on my tips and nobody knows.
•
No car, so I pretty much walk everywhere. Usually alone, just me and my shadow. And here in Las Vegas—the desert—your shadow can get pretty long. Especially late in the day, just before the sun drops behind Mt. Charleston and the cool air comes rushing down off the mountains on all four sides of the city, sucked into the super-heated valley.
It’s kind of strange, really: I’ll be walking down the street, minding my own business, and happen to turn to the east—and there’s my shadow, already up there, ahead of me; I wanna run to catch up.
And after awhile, I began to notice they’re everywhere—giant, dark, exaggerated versions of everyone, pantomiming their every motion in sharp, silent relief. And once I noticed this shadow world, it was impossible for me not to.
So I started watching it.
It’s fascinating. Like another world, a parallel universe of sorts, a silent echo of reality, a subliminal alter-life hustling and bustling beneath us, going about its business mostly unnoticed.
And it wasn’t long before I noticed something else: at first glance, the perception is that the shadows are following their owners, mimicking them; but after observing them for awhile, I would swear, it seemed more like the shadows were leading their owners around, and the owners themselves were actually the followers!
I began to wonder who, exactly, is in charge of our lives…
After all, if our shadows are actually the ones in charge, and we are merely their puppets, then that would explain my extremely shitty life; maybe I’ve just got a really shitty shadow!
Although this idea was fascinating at first—maybe even a little frightening—over time I guess I just got used to seeing all those shadows criss-crossing everywhere, leading their people around, forcing them into submission, and so it got to where I didn’t pay much attention to them anymore.
Hell, I got to where I barely even noticed my own.
But one day, that changed.
•
It was a busy Saturday at work, and the tips were better than usual, so I decided to splurge and take the bus home. It was fucking hot out, middle of August, and if nothing else, at least the bus is air-conditioned.
The stop is about a half-mile from my neighborhood, so I jumped off the bus and was walking home, thinking about the beer awaiting me in the fridge. As I trudged along, the late-day sun stretched my shadow way out behind me. Judging by my shadow, you’da thought I was an NBA player or something.
Suddenly, I thought I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, so I stopped and looked behind me—but I didn’t see anything unusual, so I shrugged, blew it off, continued my trek.
Then maybe half a block later I saw something again, and this time glanced over my shoulder just in time to see my own shadow sidling up beside me—then snap back behind me when I looked!
I stopped, turned, lifted my sunglasses. Doubting what I had seen, I watched my shadow closely as it duplicated my every move, stretched out before me in exaggerated, twenty-foot swings.
I looked around.
Nobody.
Just me and my shadow.
Jeffrey, my man, you’re losin’ it…
Perplexed, I hurried home, afraid to look behind me again, no matter what I thought I saw out of the corner of my eye…
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