Being a poet who has struggled his entire life outside of the mainstream, I have been fortunate enough to meet many interesting characters, most of whom, perhaps because of my disposition, I was able to maintain a comfortable distance and detachment from. But it was by far the most interesting character I’ve met who I became closest to and who affected the course of my own life most deeply. That man was The Shadow Man.
A few years back, on a cool Autumn night, I stopped in at my favorite tavern—a dim, dismal place near a soap factory in my neighborhood with dark granite walls and dull, yellow overhead gas lights, where all sorts of strange and questionable folk frequented, many of whom I was acquainted with. I sat down at the bar, ordered my usual Jack Daniels and Budweiser, and struck up a conversation with an old acquaintance of mine, Charles Ruddiger, a big, fat, bald, pasty man with yellow teeth and round, bulbous, blood-shot eyes. Though his breath was horrible, I didn’t mind talking with him because he had the most expressive laugh of anyone I’d ever known. And he laughed often, mostly as a result of his own jokes, which, in fact, weren’t really funny at all, but his laugh was so filled with character, was so grotesquely beautiful, I didn’t mind that fact either. He began telling me about a stranger who had been sitting in the back corner of the bar by himself drinking vodka all night. He told me that the character was strange, because, to my initial disbelief, he was, in fact, a shadow.
“A shadow? What do you mean?” I asked.
“He’s just a shadow. He has no body. Take a look.”
I looked. At first, I thought, due to the dull lighting of the place, that I was miss-seeing things, that my eyes were simply deceiving me. But, indeed, sitting at a table in the corner, hunched over a glass of vodka, resting his head in his hand, was the shadow of a tall, lanky man. Only, there was no tall, lanky man—just a shadow.
“Isn’t that unreal?” Charles said.
I could not believe it.
“No one will approach him,” Charles continued. “But boy, would I love to know his story!” And he laughed his wonderfully grotesque laugh.
After Charles went home (terribly drunk, I might add), I began to build up the courage to talk to this strange figure in the corner. I looked at him repeatedly. He did not seem to move at all. At one point, I saw him reach down into what I assumed was the pocket of his shadow-pants and pull out a pack of cigarettes. After lighting one, he smoked, and as I watched him, he seemed to turn his head and look right at me. Naturally, I abruptly looked away. I watched him in the mirror behind the bar. He seemed to still be looking at me. Finally, I made up my mind to approach him. I stood up and walked over to his table. Because he had no eyes, I was unable to determine whether or not he saw me, and this made me uncomfortable. I stopped in front of him and stared, still mystified by what I was seeing. I wanted to speak, but felt unsure of myself. Finally, The Shadow Man spoke to me.
“Would you care to sit down?” He spoke in a clear, sonorous voice that was very rich and very somber.
“Sure,” I said, and sat down across from him.
“I know what you are wondering,” he said. “It’s OK for you to ask. I am not as sensitive as you might think based on my appearance.”
“Yes,” I said nervously. “I suppose there is an elephant in the room.”
“Not an elephant,” he said with a sigh. “More like a black hole.” And he exhaled a long plume of smoke from his cigarette.
“I don’t understand,” I said, almost beside myself. “How is it that…How is it that you are just a shadow, with no figure attached to you? Are you a spirit?”
“I am no spirit,” he said. “Indeed, I come from this world, just like you.”
“But how can it be?” I asked, surprised at my own forthrightness.
“It’s a long story,” he said, with a sigh.
“I have nowhere to be. Please, tell me, if you can.”
The Shadow Man sat still and seemed to be pondering deeply. The smoke from his cigarette oozed out and mingled with his dark and paradoxically formless form. “The truth is,” he said. “I have not always been this way. That is, I have not always been a shadow detached from a figure. I once belonged to a boy, a boy who is now a man. This boy I always loved deeply. I followed him everywhere. He was such a kind, sensitive boy. Too sensitive, as it turned out. I remember following him as he picked flowers in his mother’s garden—daisies he loved the most. He would pick the daisies and bring them to his mother, who would smile and thank him warmly with flushed cheeks and kind, shimmering eyes. I remember being next to him when the bullies would push him around in the playground at school, and would feel his tears as he wept into the grass upon which I rested. Did you know,” he went on, now changing his tone into one of insightfulness and excitement. “In the dark, when a shadow blends in with the general darkness, it calls to its subject. It calls its name.”
He seemed to be growing emotional, as if the words he was speaking brought him a great deal of pride. “Only,” he went on, “no one can hear the shadow’s cries. At least, that is what I believed. You see, this boy—my boy, whom I now call my father—at night, when I would call to him—he would hear me! Yes! He responded to my calls! This boy was different. Oddly, no one suspected anything. His family did nothing out of the ordinary regarding this boy’s strange sensitivity. When he went away to college, something extraordinary happened. He discovered a way to cast me off! Why he decided to cast me off I don’t know for sure. Perhaps he was afraid of me. Perhaps it was just on a whim. In any case, he did cast me off. He banished me from his presence, and in doing so, banished his own reason and became a kind of catatonic head case. As far as I know, he is still alive, though my guess is he is living a life entirely within his own mind. Without me, you see, there is nothing to remind him that anything exists beyond his own thoughts. I myself have learned to accept my exile. Though, it has been a lonely life I have led.”
He paused and asked me if I wanted something to drink. I was sober, and I wanted to remain so to hear and understand this fascinating story, so I told him no. He went to the bar and brought back another glass of vodka, sat back down and lit another cigarette.
After a long silence, in which The Shadow Man took several drags on his cigarette and took two or three small sips of his vodka, I said: “It’s unbelievable. Have you thought of trying to find your…father, as you call him? Communicate with him?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I have thought of it. Only, there is no point. He will not accept me. What is the point of banging on the door of a vacant house?”
“But why wouldn’t he accept you?” I asked.
“Because he is afraid of me. I believe now he lives in a state of constant transcendence. Why should I go to him and break it? No, my exile is complete. I will leave him to his own devices.” The Shadow Man became pensive, it seemed. Though he had told me much, there was still a great deal I did not understand. There seemed to be a greater significance to The Shadow Man’s existence than even he realized. The whole thing seemed a portent of something much greater. I had noticed that the form of The Shadow Man seemed to grow more pronounced as his excitement grew, and began to fade as he fell deeper into a pensive state. “What is it exactly,” I began, “what force is it that is keeping you here? There must be some kind of magic at work here. Do you know where it comes from?”
“I have thought of that, too,” said The Shadow Man. “I have come to hundreds of conclusions, all more irrational than the other. But you see, I have always known that magic exists. All shadows do. Only, as with everything in this universe, the magic has laws. I do not know who or what is in control of this magic, but for whatever reason, in this one instance, the law was decidedly broken. Perhaps it has something to do with my father. Perhaps there is some special significance to his existence.”
“You mean,” I said, unable to hold back my excitement, “he is like a god?”
The Shadow Man laughed. “Him or me. Perhaps. Though, neither of us has the character of a god. He is a catatonic madman, and I, I am just a shadow and…a poor writer of silly novels.”
“You write novels?” I cried, laughing aloud. I was flabbergasted. “What sort of novels do you write?”
“I was a vagrant for many years,” he said. “I write mostly about various characters I observed in my travels.”
“That’s very interesting,” I said. “What was that like, being a vagrant?”
“Well, to be honest, I was not really in my right mind when I decided to take to the road, and it is not something I would recommend doing. I thought myself a Christ-like figure at the time. Only, I was spreading no message. I was avoiding all contact with people. My life was meaningless. Now, I write books. They are not very good. Certainly not profound or prophetic in any way.” He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “But, they are mine.”
We sat in silence for a time. Finally, I spoke. His existence, I told him, was a miracle, and that if anything he ought to be celebrated for his existence. He laughed at this. “I will tell you,” he said. “I would make a horrible celebrity. I would quite literally cease to exist in the spotlight. It would destroy my soul, make me conscious of everything but the truth—namely, that I am a shadow. That kind of attention would convince me that I am actually a man, when in reality, I am not. In that situation, I’d have to play the role of shadow. No, let me be a shadow, even if I have to play the role of man. The only way for me to survive is to blend in, and always, always remember where I come from.”
As he went on in this way he became more and more pronounced. Somehow, I couldn’t help but sense some hypocrisy in what The Shadow Man had said. It seemed he enjoyed the spotlight very much.
“But you do agree with me that your existence is a miracle?” I said.
Surprisingly he responded by saying that, according to the shadows, all of existence was a miracle, and that magic was not miraculous at all, but rather a tedious collection of minute processes that were much like the laws of physics, only inverted. “Yes,” he said, “the laws of magic are just as tedious as those of the actual world.”
I laughed. “But surely you can’t believe that the laws of the world are tedious. The span of physical principles is endless. Think of it, Newton and Einstein—every generation there are countless new discoveries being made. We are only just beginning to understand the physical world we live in. As far as the world where you come from, there is absolutely zero understanding.”
“You are forgetting that I come from the same world that you do,” he said. “I was simply altered, and came alive out of some magic that is a mystery to me. I wish I had access to whatever power it was that gave me my independence, and animated me. But the truth is, just because I seem magical, doesn’t mean that I have access to the magic. That exists outside of this realm, just as it existed outside the realm of my father. It was just a brief opening. My father knew nothing of magic. But it was revealed to him only long enough for him to banish me. Then, like a gust of wind, it was gone.”
“I’m sorry to be drilling you with all these questions,” I said. “It is just that you fascinate me. I have never met anyone like you. But I have to ask, if you did have the opportunity to re-merge with your father, would you?”
The Shadow Man leaned back in his chair, and seemed to let out a kind of groan or sigh that was much like the sound of a small motor idling. “I no longer have the desire to. Liberation is a blessing, even for one who’s existence in the world is completely absurd. Something tells me by your own demeanor that you understand and even agree with me.”
I laughed. It was true, I told him. I enjoyed my own freedom despite the fact that, very much like The Shadow Man, I was a pariah and an outcast. “Yes, we are very much in similar boats. Perhaps we should stick together. Do you have many friends?” Immediately after asking this question I felt ashamed. The answer was obvious.
“No,” he said. “And I don’t have any acquaintances, either. This solitary life has chosen me, not I it. But I have made my peace with it.”
“You don’t strike me as the type that needs friends, or even acquaintances for that matter,” I said. “You seem like you thrive in solitude, but I wonder, would you be generous enough to have me as a friend, simply for my own benefit? You see, I find you endlessly fascinating, and as I am a poet, I am always on the lookout for inspiring relationships. I feel you have much to teach me, and I am eager to learn. I know that is a bold proposition, but, I feel if I don’t make it, I will regret it for the rest of my life.”
The Shadow Man sat quiet and motionless for a time, letting the smoke from his cigarette drift across the table and over my face. “Yes,” he finally said. “I could surely call you a friend, at least in due time. For me, whose friendships have been few and far between, the title of friend must be earned slowly over time. For now, allow me to call you a friendly acquaintance.”
“That is fine,” I said. “My name is Jeffery, by the way. And you are?”
“I have no name. I am simply The Shadow Man.”
When he said his name, his figure became so pronounced, that he almost appeared to be made of solid form.
“If I may ask,” I said, “what happens to you in the darkness? Do you…disappear?”
“Disappearing is a very vague term to use with a shadow,” he replied. “I do not disappear, per se. I merge with the darkness. I become it and it becomes me.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Probably a bit like how it feels when you write a poem.”
I smiled. “I see. So, does light vivify you then?”
“It does. That’s why I stay out of the light, at least the sunlight. As you can imagine, families, especially children, have a problem with shadows that aren’t attached to a figure. This bar is very much an exceptional place,” he went on, looking around. “No one here seems to mind me one bit.”
“Yes,” I said. “We are all very much like shadows here.”
Again, we sat in silence for a spell. So many questions were running through my mind, I was having trouble culling them. “Are you mortal?” I finally asked.
“Mortal in what sense?”
“Can you die?”
“A shadow does not die,” he said with finality. “A tree may die, but its shadow does not.”
“So when your father dies…”
“He will be buried without me,” said The Shadow Man. “That does not matter. He will have the shadow of the coffin surrounding him. In fact,” and here he seemed to grow excited, and leaned across the table, speaking in a low, solemn tone. “There really is only one shadow. I am simply the living representation of it.”
“So,” I said, overcome with awe. “You mean that you ARE shadow? All shadow personified?”
“I suppose that’s one way of putting it,” he said, so matter-of-factly and with such pride, I laughed aloud.
“It’s just…so absurd!”
I looked at him, and I became solemn again. I tried to comprehend the significance of what he had told me. A strange foreboding came over me, as if I was in the presence of something either too sacred to be approached, or too demonic to be trusted. I began to think of all the poetic ways I had used the term “shadow” in my life. It was always something that represented the fearful, and the unknown. Something where dangers lurked. And yet, this Shadow Man seemed to me the perfect gentleman. I wondered how such an anomalous being could exist and maintain such equanimity and poise. I told him this, and he just laughed.
“What else would you expect from a shadow? If I were fire, perhaps, I’d be more temperamental!”
He continued to laugh for a moment, and then, when he caught his breath, I asked him if he had developed some kind of philosophy to help him live.
“I must admit I have developed my own way of coping with the world,” he said. “A philosophical method, I suppose. Though, as far as actual philosophy goes, my thoughts are completely arbitrary (and oddly enough, I feel that the thoughts of every great philosopher are arbitrary). I revel in darkness because it knows me and I it. I flee from the sun because it places me in a world in which I am neither welcomed or understood. Because I have no real face, you cannot tell if I am really being completely honest with you or somewhat facetious (or maybe you can just by the tone of my voice—though, I would argue that I have trained my voice to disguise my true intentions. I can’t say if I have succeeded, however, and really, that is beside the point). I am a shadow, who, in all regards, wants nothing more than to be someone’s shadow. Though I have told you that I love my freedom, that is only half true. I love my freedom to choose to have responsibility, to choose to be bound to something, whether it be a man, or a tree, or a garbage can or a story. And living as I do, I can make this choice. When I was with my father, I had no choice at all. I was a slave to the sun and the moon and the body of my father. I loved my father, that much is true. But perhaps I was a burden to him, and I did not enjoy that aspect of it. When he cast me off, I felt ashamed. I truly wept from shame. For a long time, I wanted nothing more than to destroy myself. But how could I do that? As I’ve said, a shadow doesn’t die. And even though technically I was no longer actually a shadow, but something else entire, I came from shadow, had the blood of a shadow if you will.”
“But why do you think your father felt that you were a burden?”
“It’s simple,” he responded. “I reminded him of his own mortality.”
“How so?” I asked, even more curious than before.
“It is easy for a person to get lost in the ether of their own ego, to forget they are mortal, if they are constantly looking at the sky or the trees or the flowers, as my father often did. When one is young and vigorous, it is so much easier to avoid the concept of death, or pervert it in such a way that it feeds the ego and makes one either a martyr or a legend in one’s own mind. But there comes a time when one must again look at the earth and one’s shadow, and recognize the truth of one’s minisculity in the face of death and the universe. My father, for whatever reason, could not accept this, and so, as the platitude goes: ‘Familiarity breeds contempt.’ In other words, he learned not only to fear me, but also to absolutely despise me for the one fact that I was a projection of his bodily form and not an immortal projection of his soul, proof that his ego would never die. And, now, in hindsight, perhaps his hatred was justified, because, like Jesus himself, he knew that God had a higher purpose for him than his earthly existence, and perhaps is truly an immortal.” Again, he shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “And perhaps I am nothing more than a Judas to be cast aside, whose betrayal could only go so far as to destroy the life that was initially given to him—a life of purity, and simplicity—but could not destroy the essence of who he truly is. In other words, the divine nature of his being.”
By the end of this speech, he was very faint. Though he spoke calmly and sometimes even jocosely, I could tell that he was in a state of great emotional pain. I wanted to reassure him, to ease his anxiety, but I was at a loss for words, and suddenly, he sprang up again in excitement, and became more pronounced.
“And do you know,” he began. “He may truly be the second incarnation of Christ, for all I know. But if he is, tell me, what does that make me? Of course, that notion is absolutely absurd, the ravings of a deluded megalomaniac. I am nothing but a shadow. However miraculous my existence is, I myself am anything but miraculous.”
There was so much about what he had said that I wanted to refute, but I could not find the words. And besides, it seemed to me that there was still a great deal that he wanted to say, and I felt obliged to listen to him before I made any judgment.
“I will tell you,” he continued in his fervor. “It has been a lonely life for me these past three decades. During the first years—my vagabond days—I was like a solitary wolf. When the sun was out, I’d sleep beneath bridges, or find my way into old abandoned buildings. At night, I would explore, and I found things that still trouble and excite me to this day. I learned a great deal about humanity during those years. For example, the fact that all people live almost in a constant state of fear and anxiety is due entirely to the fact that they have been convinced of their freewill when actually they have no control over anything. Like a horse under the whip, they are driven into greater and greater states of anxiety and fear, and at the same time, certainty that what they are doing is the only possible thing to do. I have also come to accept this as reality, and I myself feel fear and anxiety. But whereas men feel their fears in terms of shades of darkness, I feel my own in terms of gradations of light. Nothing torments me more than the sun—than the exposure of being in the sun—so I avoid it at all costs. This has caused me a great deal of anguish.”
The bar was filling up. The room echoed with the sound of loud drunken talk and laughter. It smelled of cigarette smoke and beer. I looked out the window at the front of the room. Outside, I could make out the silhouettes of trees that lined the road verge, and the post office across the street.
“Why don’t we go for a walk,” I said.
He nodded his head in agreement. We paid our tabs and left.
The night air was cool and a harsh wind was blowing. We walked in silence for a way, passing along the vinyl fencing surrounding the soap factory, whose smokestacks pumped pungent smoke into the hazy blue night. In the semi-darkness, I could barely see my companion, which, because of the fact that I knew he was there (and probably brooding over something), gave me a strange haunting feeling that compelled me to break the silence as soon as I could.
“It sure is getting cold,” I said. “Won’t be long before winter is here.” He did not respond. I looked up at the moon. It was almost full and shining down from high in the sky ahead of us. I couldn’t help but think of the duality of nature—how we perceive at best only half of what is presented to us and how the other half plays just as great a role in the overall scheme of things. The Shadow Man had revealed a great deal to me, indeed, yet I did not truly know him. Could anyone ever truly know a shadow?
The Shadow Man seemed to mutter something under his breath.
“What’s that?” I asked.
The Shadow Man sighed. “It’s nothing.”
Another long, uncomfortable silence ensued.
A group of four young people—three men and a woman—were approaching us on the sidewalk. There was a small university nearby, and occasionally some of the students frequented the two or three bars on the street. The Shadow Man stopped and put his back against the wall of the brick building beside us, hiding himself. I stood still as the four young people passed, feeling awkward. After they had passed, the Shadow Man came out of the shadow.
“It must be Hell for you,” I said. “Have you ever been discovered?”
“I have, many times. But the eye and the brain work at different speeds, and usually the most dramatic reaction I get is a look of bafflement, then they simply disregard me—most likely as a trick of the mind—and walk away. Occasionally people will do a double take, but I have become skilled at finding ways to hide myself.”
“Do you ever have the desire to engage people, talk to them?”
“Constantly,” he said, not without a tinge of humor. “Particularly women.”
“Really?” I cried. “So you have inherited the base desires of your human counterparts?”
“It was not like that at first,” he said. “I acquired a taste for pleasure over time. I was very naïve, at first. All I could think about was my father, and why he had cast me away. But as I traveled around, I began to notice things—flowers in the moonlight, trains passing over the bridges and disappearing on the horizon, lovers walking together down the thoroughfares. When I had been with my father, all of my attention had been directed at him—following him, imitating him, playing with him. But after I was cast away, I was free to develop my own character, my own desires and beliefs.”
Something was beginning to dawn on me regarding my new friend. At times, it seemed like he was very bitter towards his father for banishing him, and other times it seemed like he had made peace with it. There were things he mentioned—the flowers in the moonlight, how he had been given his “liberty” to develop his own beliefs and desires—that seemed to show that he had moved on from his past life. But I could not help sensing that there was an overriding pride in all of it, as if he had fabricated this pride as a means to cover up a deeply-rooted bitterness, and even, pain. I wanted to get to the source of that pain, but I had a feeling it was not going to be easy.
“Do you miss your father?” I finally asked him after a long spell of silence.
The Shadow Man looked down and suddenly stopped. Then, he looked up at the sky. “Do you see that star over there?” He pointed at a glowing white spec in the Eastern sky. “No, it isn’t a star. It’s Venus, I believe. Over there.”
I looked. “Yes,” I said. “I see it.”
“Did you miss it before I pointed it out to you?”
My spirits dropped. “No,” I said, dejectedly. “I suppose I didn’t. But,” and here I lost my temperance, “that is just Venus. Why should I ever miss Venus? Venus is not my father. It has never cast me away from it, because I was never a part of it. You are your father’s shadow. How can you claim that you only miss him when I remind you of him? He is your father. You were with him the better part of your life. Certainly, you must feel some sadness, and wonder where he is and how he is doing. Why not search for him? Why not try to…”
“My father is gone,” he interrupted.
“But I thought you said…”
“He lives in his mind.”
“But a mind is part of a man’s life! Have you ever considered that he is the way he is because he feels guilt for what he did to you? Have you considered that he might be yearning for your return? Why not search for him?”
“There is no need to search.”
“But…huh? What do you mean?”
“I know where he is.”
I was stunned. “Have you been to see him?”
“No.”
“But…why not?”
The Shadow Man remained silent for a long time. “I am a shadow,” he finally said. “An outcast from all that is bright and good in this world. I don’t believe that I even have a heart. How can he…how can you even expect me to forgive him?”
“Are you really so much an outcast as you believe?” I asked in a fury. “Look at me. Do I seem evil to you? Though you may no longer be a projection of your father, you are still a projection of something, just as every entity in this universe is. So what is it? What are you a projection of? You who were created by the deepest of magic, do you really think you are alone in this world? Do you really think that you are not infused with a spirit that can be bright and good, as well as cold and dark? You have it in you to forgive. You are just afraid, as any man or woman would be. The fact that you are a shadow makes no difference. You are a projection of God’s loving grace.”
As I spoke to him, I could see his figure begin to fade, as if he would disappear altogether, and for a moment, I thought he indeed had disappeared. But suddenly he became more substantial again, and he spoke in a voice that sounded like he was choking back tears.
“Yes, you are right,” he said. “I can forgive. But I have free will! I can go where I please! Why give it all up?”
I pointed to the moon. “You see that?” I said. “Do you think the moon would be better off drifting through space than circling the Earth? Free will means nothing without love. As a novelist, you should know that.”
The Shadow Man was weeping openly now. “I am so afraid,” he said.
“But you will face your fear. And I will go with you.”
He looked at me abruptly, as if amazed. “You will?” He sighed deeply. “Thank you.”
We decided to meet the next day at the bar and go to his father. He said goodbye and left.
The Shadow Man’s father resided in a mental institution that was about an hour’s walk from the bar. When we arrived at the institution, naturally, there was a scene. Security was called in and they detained The Shadow Man. He told them the whole truth, and though they could not believe what they heard, they had no choice but to accept it. The Shadow Man and I were brought into a small room where a tall, lanky man with a blank, catatonic stare sat on the edge of a bed, drooling in the dark. The nurse turned on the light and left the room, leaving me and The Shadow Man alone with the patient, who showed no signs of being aware of our presence.
I could tell that the Shadow Man was at a loss. He stood beside me, his head bowed, apparently shaking. “Speak to him,” I said. The Shadow Man shook his head rapidly. “Do you see what he has become without you? Speak to him!”
The Shadow Man stopped shaking. He took a deep breath, and whispered a single word. “Karl,” he said.
The pupils of the man on the bed seemed to suddenly shrink, and he made a slight, almost imperceptible movement with his shoulders. Again, The Shadow Man spoke. “Karl, I have returned.” The man’s eyes began to dart around rapidly. “I forgive you.”
The man’s mouth dropped open and he gasped. He looked up at The Shadow Man, astonished. Again, The Shadow Man spoke. “And I ask that you forgive me, too.”
When he spoke these words, a question arose in my mind. What did the man have to forgive his shadow for? And then I remembered what The Shadow Man had told me, that his father had cast him out for torturing him with the near constant reminder that he was flesh and blood—a mortal who would one day die and fade into oblivion. Karl was now rediscovering this fact for the first time in decades, and all he could do was weep for joy. “I forgive you!” he cried. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, The Shadow Man began to creep closer and closer to the weeping man, until, to my great awe and astonishment, he was reattached to his father. The man jumped up from the bed and looked at me wildly. He embraced me and wept. “The color!” he cried. “The color has returned!” And as he wept into my shoulder, I looked down and saw the man’s shadow, which seemed to be embracing every facet of the wooden floor.
