Shadows

Three pieces featuring the place where light is less

Hallo folks!

Thanks for being here. It means a lot. There’s a lot of content out there and I appreciate you being here, reading this now.

Each time of the year has a different light. The light in my part of New Hampshire right now is cold. If you look at shadows in the snow, they are blue. The colour temperature is lower. As is the actual temperature. The sun is lower in the sky and the shadows at this time of year are longer, sometimes stretching for what seems miles. In the woods, shadows look like bar codes streaked from the trees, especially at dawn and dusk when taking Moe the wonderdog for a walk. Driving at this time of year, I notice more shadows, traveling from gig to gig. The shadows inspire thoughts and ideas. I wrote down three separate lines which I thought would turn into a single poem, but instead turned into three pieces.

The three lines:

Shadow boxing when the only things causing the shadows was having my back to the light?

Time to turn off the light and let the darkness play where it will. (I like this!)

Or and, turn and leave the shadows behind.

Those were the lines that inspired these three short pieces of writing. I don’t know what will happen to the first two pieces, but I think the third is finished, complete.

Shadow Boxing

The fluorescent lighting flickered, blinked, went out and returned. The lights in the ceiling were watching the young school boy trying to find the courage to walk up to the person he wanted to ask on a date, and mirrored his actions. The boy found his courage coming and going, flickering and blinking. Lighting up, deep breath, here we go, only to turn around to leave before coming back again. Shadows then light. Light then shadow. He was shy but focused, only to turn and blink out once more.

His dad was a boxer, and would drink himself to sleep at night, but the boy liked poetry and preferred the herbal teas he bought for himself using his paper route money. The lad looked at the person he wanted to ask out once more. He studied their form, their shape, their height. The light flickered. The boy was shadow boxing when the only thing causing the shadows was having his back to the light, the light shining on his love made them radiant but unseeing, facing the brightness the boy emitted, not knowing this himself.

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Leave the Shadows

Turn and leave the shadows behind
For that is all they are. Shadows.
No substance, no matter,
No thought, no friend.
Leave the shadows behind.
Don’t listen to the whispers;
They’re just on the wind, the trees
The leaves, the distant birds.
That is all you hear.
Maybe rats and bats,
And creaking pipes, but
No substance, no matter, no thought, no friend,
So leave the shadows behind.

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The Fire

It was cold out. Frigid doesn’t do it justice. The snow had stopped, it was so cold, and everything began to freeze. You could hear the trees turning into ice. The stream cracked and tore. Frozen plants fell broken under the weight of the snow. Inside the small building, the wind, which admittedly and thankfully was light, could only get in through the cracks and around the door and windows. He was lucky to have found the shack.

He sat there wrapped in a couple of thick blankets, his arms exposed as he placed shattered branches into the hungry flames that seemed to devour the wood too quickly to heat anything. Yet heat reluctantly began to expand from the fireplace and into the room. Light reached out, trying to tickle the furthest corners, and together with the shadows danced. As soon as the pile of sticks and branches was as high as he dared make it in the old brick fireplace, he spun around to put his back to flames to warm more of himself. He watched his breath steam in front of him, reaching for the light and darkness which played where their wished. Dragging his pack across the floor, a pile of dust was ploughed before it, leaving a cleaner streak on the wooden planks in its wake. Reaching inside, he felt around for the food he had brought with him. What was left of it.

A soft thump was heard as snow slid from the corrugated metal roof above. It came from near where the chimney rose to the roof and looking up, he pulled the blankets closer and tighter around him. He twisted around and stared at the roof as another piece of snow slid down the metal and thumped on the ground outside. He shuffled around to once more face the flames; the food in his hands. Looking into the fire, he saw a face, a bright face, a face that flickered orange and red, blues and silvers. The smell of burning maple and birch changed to sulphur and a long black tongue came out of the face to wrap itself around the man’s neck and pull him into the fire.

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I hope you enjoyed those pieces of writing. It’s not where I had originally thought those separate lines would go! I suppose that’s what happens when you let words play together in the shadows of the room as you write.

Look at the light that surrounds you. See what the shadows look like. Notice the quality and colour of the light and the shadows. Sometimes there are wonderful things waiting to be found. And remember, shadows have no substance, no matter, no thought, no friend, so leave the shadows behind. (I am still not sure about that poem!) Anyway…

Be safe out there.
Peace,
Simon