Yeah, yeah, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Big deal’, you’re saying, ‘everyone can see shadows.’
Well… That’s not quite right.
For one thing, not everyone can see shadows. I know by now you’ve probably seen those videos on, like, YouTube or TikTok or r/KidsAreFuckingStupid, where a toddler’s walking around on a sunny day, looks down, sees its shadow, and starts screaming and trying to run from it. We’ve all seen them. They’re hilarious. ‘Stupid baby,’ you think. ‘It’s like it’s never seen its shadow before!’
That’s the thing, though – it hasn’t. See, there’s apparently some part of our brains that just isn’t quite developed. It’s like learning to walk and talk and eat solid foods. There’s a point where it’s like a switch is flipped, and we can suddenly see this whole new part of reality.
Think about that for a minute. You’re walking around, not a care in the world, happy as can be, and suddenly out of nowhere there’s this strange black blobby thing that’s stuck to you, following you around, and no matter what you do, you can’t escape it.
Yeah, I’d probably scream and try to run too.
Anyway, as I was saying. ‘I can see shadows’ isn’t quite accurate, either. It’s more like… I’m aware of them, more than I should be.
I don’t even really remember when it started. Kinda like a baby seeing its shadow for the first time, I realized one day that the shadow of my bathroom door, cast by the light in the hall, was lagging. It wasn’t a huge difference, easy to miss if I hadn’t been looking down. I don’t even know why I was, just a ‘right moment’ kind of thing.
I started to close the door, and the shadow didn’t follow immediately, it lingered for just a split second.
I blinked and stared, confused for a moment. I turned off the bathroom light so the shadow from the hall would be more visible, and slowly pulled the door open again. Sure enough, the shadow didn’t follow right away, almost as though it was ‘stuck’ to the floor. It was definitely weird, and I spent a minute or so, just standing there, swinging the door back and forth and watching the shadow drift behind as if it just couldn’t quite catch up.
Eventually I got the idea to pull out my phone and start recording, but it didn’t really help. The shadow on the camera moved perfectly fine, following the door right on time like it was supposed to. Keeping one eye on the screen and the other on the shadow, I could see the difference - realtime-shadow was laggy, while film-shadow was accurate.
I turned the camera off, and turned on the flashlight instead. The shadow from that was just as laggy, only now there were two of them. Same as when I turned the bathroom light back on.
So it wasn’t the light, it was the shadow itself.
I tried casting shadows with other objects - my arm, a towel, things like my toothrbrush, the cabinet doors on the sink. Everything else moved properly, so it was just the shadow of the bathroom door.
I turned everything but the hall light off again, held my left hand up, and slowly swung the door into it with my right hand, until the door met my palm, and the door’s shadow met my hand’s shadow. And though I couldn’t actually feel the sensation of it, a shiver ran down my spine when the shadows met, and somehow the door’s was… nudged into place. There’s really no other way to put it. When I swung the door again, the shadow was properly attached.
I let go of the door and stared down at the shadow on the floor as I leaned on the wall. After a moment, I realized my left hand was cradled in my right, right thumb rubbing circles into my left palm. The shadow contact didn’t actually feel like anything, but I could still feel it, like a phantom nerve.
With a shake, I nudged the door closed, turned on the bathroom light, and did the business I’d went in there to do, determined to put it off as my imagination, or a hallucination brought on by lack of sleep, since it was bedtime and I was tired.
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It wasn’t a hallucination. Or, if it was, it was a recurring one.
You know that thing where you hear about something, and suddenly it’s everywhere, and you don’t know if it’s just now showing up or if it’s always been there and you’re finally noticing it?
That’s me and the laggy shadows.
I started seeing them more and more often. Doors, furniture, just random things. Even my car door at one point. It was just a slight drift, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it kind of thing. And all I had to do was reach out, let it move into my hand, and somehow my shadow would nudge its shadow back into place.
I had no idea why it was happening for a long while. It was just a thing, you know? ‘Once you see it, you’ll never unsee it’. I couldn’t not fix the shadows when I noticed one sticking. It’s not like it was a difficult thing; just a little nudge, and done. Less than a second of my time. It became almost an instinct that I didn’t think anything about.
Not until Grampa Jay.
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Grampa Jay wasn’t my grandpa. See, I live in one of those tiny-ass towns in the middle of nowhere where the population stays under five digits for generations. Everyone knows everyone. Neighbors care about each other. You could walk everywhere and folks would wave and say hello. Nothing to really bring tourists, out of the way of most major highways and interstates, pleasant enough that most of us want to stay but not idyllic enough to bring in lots if new folks.
Grampa Jay ran a little corner store a few blocks from where I lived. He’d been there since before I was born - ‘Jay’s Market’, it was. He was older than dirt, and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met in my life. Everyone called him Grampa Jay because he was one of the oldest people in town, and he treated everyone he met like family.
I went to the market a couple times a week for small necessities, and Grampa Jay was always there sitting behind the counter on his stool, ready with a warm hello whenever anyone walked in, door bumping into the old brass bell hanging above it.
That day, I popped in just for some milk and a few things for dinner. Just a quick stop on my way home from work. It was just me and Grampa Jay, and we spent a minute or two just chatting. And as we were talking, I noticed something that gave me a chill:
His shadow was lagging.
I’d been ‘fixing’ shadows for months at that point, but it was the first time I’d seen it on a living being - until then, it had always been objects. But as he picked up my groceries to scan and bag them, his shadow wasn’t quite keeping up with his arm. The shadow of his body, his head, cast onto the wall behind him was also slow, so it was all of him.
I leaned on the counter with my forearms, one hand reaching out to try and surreptitiously nudge his shadow back into place as had become practically second nature to me. And as my hand neared where it would come into contact with his arm, My shadow…
It flinched away.
I could only stare in horror as my shadow pulled away from where it should be cast, curled itself into a fist with the index finger extended, and wagged the digit back and forth in such a universal ‘naughty, naughty!’ gesture that I could just hear Nedry’s computerized ‘nuh uh uh! nuh uh uh!’
I jerked upright and folded my arms around myself, hands tucked into my armpits. When I looked up, Grampa Jay was looking at me in surprise and concern. “Y’alright there, kid?”
“Yeah,” I replied. “Just been feeling a bit off last couple days, you know? Probably not sleeping right.”
He nodded in that sage, understanding way that seems second-nature to wise old men. “Yeah, I getcha. You try an’ get some sleep tonight, yeah? Gotta take care of yourself while ya can.” He handed over my bag of groceries and the gallon of milk.
I thanked him, still feeling a bit shaky, and gathered up my things before heading out, wishing him a good night. It was after seven in the evening at that point, and though I hadn’t eaten since lunch, suddenly I wasn’t feeling very hungry. When I got home, I put everything away, spent some time watching mindless TV, and eventually went to bed.
I didn’t sleep well.
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It was a few days - almost a week - before I made it back to Grampa Jay’s, but I was out of eggs and craving an omelette. When I entered the store, it was a surprise to see Ella, Grampa Jay’s actual granddaughter, sitting on the cashier stool. I just stopped and stared at her - it had been years, probably a couple of decades, since I last saw someone there other than Grampa Jay.
“Hey, Ella, everything alright?”
When she looked over at me, I saw she’d been crying. She gave me a wavering smile, and pointed at a flyer posted on the wall next to the counter. I walked closer to read it.
Jacob ‘Grampa Jay’ Maxwell, 83, passed away peacefully in his sleep last Friday. He is survived by his loving family and all those who knew him. Funeral services will be held Tuesday. All are welcome to attend and pay their last respects to a beloved member of our community.
And at that point, Ella wasn’t the only one who was crying. When I realized the words were blurring from the tears, I dropped my head and pressed the heels of my palms into my eyes. Once I got myself back under control, I sniffed, and turned to Ella.
“Was it peaceful, at least?”
She nodded. “Yeah. Apparently he just went from a heart attack without waking up. Just… went to sleep, and that was it, I guess.”
I let out a breath. “That’s something, at least. Wish I’d’ve had a chance to say goodbye. Known him since I was born, you know?”
“Me too,” she replied, with that shaky smile again, and we both had a little watery laugh at that.
We spent some time chatting about Grampa Jay, just sharing memories of him. Eventually my stomach reminded me of my omelette craving, and I sheepishly grabbed my supplies so Ella could ring them up. As I left, I promised her I’d make it to the funeral service.
The walk home gave me time to dwell on my thoughts. Maybe the shadow thing was just a coincidence. I hoped it was. It wasn’t until then that I realized I didn’t actually know what happens if I let the shadows keep lagging. I’d always nudged them as soon as I noticed it. I decided the next time it happened, I’d do my best to ignore it.
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It didn’t take long for something to get out of sync. This time it was the utensil drawer in the kitchen. I slid it back and forth a few times, making sure, then closed it without nudging the shadow back into place.
Since I opened it several times a day, it was easy for me to keep track of the lag. While I fixed all the other desynced shadows I saw, this one I was determined to ignore. As the days passed, the lag got worse, the shadow sticking more and more with each use. Until, eventually, I pulled the drawer open to grab a spoon, and the handle snapped off in my hand. I fumbled, bumped into the drawer, and knocked it off-track, bad enough that it took me a few minutes to get it back into place.
The handle was unfixable. I had to pop by the hardware store for a replacement. Annoyingly enough, they didn’t carry the design of the ones I had anymore; I had to settle for ‘close enough’ until I could order the right one from online somewhere.
And as I stood there staring at that mismatched drawer handle, it came to me.
The whole time I’ve been fixing broken shadows, nothing else in my life has broken, until that drawer.
I held my hand out, and stared down at the shadow it cast on the linoleum floor. My fingers twitched, almost giving into the urge to wiggle them, but I was terrified I’d see the lag in my own shadow.
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Since then, I’ve done my best to avoid looking at the shadows of anything living. Objects, sure, I can fix those, and pass off the lack of faulty things in my life as good luck. But people, animals? It’s hard, but I’m managing.
My shadow’s never interacted with me again, though I’ve also avoided looking at it too.
At least I can still look at videos. Though I don’t laugh at the babies who scream at their shadows anymore.