I know when you are going to die. I can read shadows. Shadows can signal death. Why should I have been shocked to learn this? Why should anyone be shocked to hear this? Shadows are our forever companion.

 

       It’s a gift or a curse depending on the situation. Perhaps you’re living in excruciating pain and you’ve sought relief from every available source possible, but there is no one out there who can help you. Painkillers only allow you to cope. They dull the pain but never conquer it. It’s a gift if I can help you, a curse if I cannot. But I can only help if you are part of my world and only under certain and rare circumstances. Most shadows are as they should be in the natural world. Only a few will draw me in and behave in an aberrant, supernatural way. I have no control over which shadow reveals itself to me, but it is a frightening experience

 

       No one knows about this ability of mine. Not my mother or father, or my sister. No one. Except for those I have helped, and myself. A vow of secrecy is required. I don’t want to become some kind of weird attraction, or obsession. I don’t want people making pilgrimages to see me. I don’t lay healing hands on folks. My hands hold no such power. If death is lurking close-by, and I am to help a person continue on in this world, their shadow will draw me in. 

 

       I don’t know when it started, this ability to read shadows. But I know it was long before my boyfriend died. I just didn’t understand the signs at the time. I wish I had. Maybe I could have prevented his death. Maybe.

 

       My boyfriend died six months ago. He was only sixteen and in perfect health. I didn’t know then that I possessed the ability to prevent his death. He stood on the diving board of our community pool, yelling at me to watch him perform his famous swan dive. His shadow wavered, like the waves of sound, or like heart waves seen on medical monitors. They moved vertically, and shimmered, and his shadow separated from his body, becoming its own upright entity, not a dark figure undulating on the water. But the illusion – which I believed it was at the time – lasted only for a millisecond, and then his shadow was no more. Yet, as I thought back on it, I clearly remember the morning sun shining brightly in a clear blue sky. He didn’t die that afternoon. Not even that night. He died the following day. A drunk driver ran a red light and hit him straight on. Death came in moments.

 

       Could I have save him? Perhaps. I’ll never know. But if I had a second chance, I would take him to an open space and have him stand for an hour under the straight-up noonday sun. Sunlight is life, darkness is death. A balance is maintained. But sometimes, when there is a forewarning, the overpowering light from the sun can cleanse away the darkness of death. Death is stayed. I have seen it in visions and dreams. I have witnessed it with my own eyes. 

 

***Story One is just one of many short stories I wrote under this title. Pennies (blog) was written for the title, too.

Image credit: markbarky