He burnt his shadow on the wall before he left. A silhouette of his slightly bent back, unruly hair & a small suitcase. The moment it happened, she was sipping tea on the couch with the day's newspaper on her lap. She did not look up when he gently closed the door. She had lived this scenario in her mind too many times before.
***
She burnt her shadow on the door. The contour of her hair fanning across her shoulders, bent elbows & a finger to her lip, a touch of anticipation forever frozen in domestic sphere. The shadow grew deeper shades as the day slid past, seeping through cracks in the wooden floorboards. No one would mind the abandoned ghost for a long while.
***
A child marched into the room with a bucket of soap water & a large yellow sponge. She scrubbed her parents' shadows while she savored the bubbles foaming between her fingers. She would grow up to be the girl neither of her parents wanted her to be: a destroyer with a cool, cool heart until she burnt her own shadow on someone else's wall.
Great piece Nicolette! At first I thought the shadows were of people that had been killed in the atomic blasts. Then I realized it was much different. Your story leaves room for the reader to think more about it. Great visuals too!
ReplyDeleteOh I love this, Nicolette! I thing you presented it perfectly in this structure of three parts, and the metaphors of the shadows just tells so many more stories than how these three intertwine. Nice!
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