Shadow
By Peter F Crowley
Shira goes back to her therapist after a 3-year hiatus. But the shadow always hovers in the background.
Breathing was once a source of truth.
When Shira took several deep breaths and slowly released carbon dioxide into the air, her mind cleared. The blue sky was no longer a mammoth, imploding amorphousness but open-aired and endless. Her mind was free to muse on exoplanets and wonder why they only had two sizes, 1.4 and 2.4 times the width of Earth. Shira could contemplate the “sisterhood of the species,” including rare instances of breast cancer in beluga whales, as she had recently read in Scientific American.
She would drink wine by herself in Waltham center on Wednesday evenings at a small, outdoor café. There Shira watched the myriads of people pass on their way home from work. She considered “what hadn’t been” – a different life with a family, kids, a husband, a white picket fence, the whole nine. These thoughts cruised around her brain until reaching the crescendo: “I can barely look after myself. How could I handle all that?”
But something changed.
The breathing exercises became arduous. Shira took a deep breath, but instead of seamless inhalation, she felt a thick knot in her throat that constricted air passage. She tried to work through it, but the pause ruined her momentum, preventing the meditation from having its intended effect. Instead, Shira found that her breaths were shallower, and she became conscious of each one. She wondered what would happen when she stopped these abrupt breaths. Would she pass out and would someone find her on the street?
Shira began to go out less with friends. When she did, she’d look into their eyes beseechingly, trying to intuit whether, if she suddenly stopped breathing, would they help? Might they think there’s nothing wrong? Or would they notice, but to avoid embarrassment, pretend not to and continue with their conversation? That might be too late. She’d be on the floor, her face turning blue.
She started going back to her therapist after a 2-year hiatus.
Mr. Ross was a kind man who listened closely to all of her problems. He decided to give her a mix of gabapentin and trazodone, which she soon began a routine of double dosing.
Less than a week later, the sky was blue again, rather than a flood of cyan lava. Shira wanted to do everything that she hadn’t done in years, even when her breathing techniques worked, like ride the Ferris Wheel, try speed dating, call old friends and get drunk with them, and even have a one-night stand.
A few months later, in Dr. Ross’s office, something happened.
Shira was observing that his grey beard had turned brown when she noticed a shadow behind him, shaped like a person. She figured it was just the angle of the late afternoon sunlight filtering through the shades and hitting the therapist. But when Dr. Ross excused himself to use the bathroom, the shadow remained. Shira rubbed her eyes and shook it off as not having enough sleep the previous night.
She became reluctant to engage in her newly found lust for life.
On her next appointment with Dr. Ross, the shadow was behind him from the beginning. He asked if something was wrong. Shira shook her head violently. Dr. Ross eyed her carefully and decided that he needed to change her medication regime. Then he got an emergency call from a patient and had to leave the room. When Dr. Ross closed the door, the shadow got up, pivoted around and sat in the therapist’s chair.
The shadow leaned towards Shira and whispered, “Whatever you do, don’t run!”
Her eyes bulged open, and she bolted out of the room and down four flights of stairs.
Once outside, she walked briskly down the sidewalk and kept glancing over her shoulder. Shira was about to go around the block when she stopped to see if the shadow was following her. Her eyes locked in on the main door of the therapist’s building. She waited for a moment and didn’t see anything. Then, from the corner of her eyes, she saw a dark image slinking along buildings’ edges in her direction. The shadow extracted itself from the building’s brick wall and stood before her on the sidewalk, not more than ten feet away. It raised its arms forward with hands ajar, coming nearer. Shira turned and raced away down the sidewalk.
She could hear the shadow heaving for breath in her ear. Then Shira felt hands clutching her throat tighter and tighter. She ran faster but could still hear its thunderous footsteps inches away.
Rain started to fall, and visibility diminished. A blue Volkswagen driving south on Merrimack Street crashed into Shira at full speed as she crossed with a “No Walk” sign.
The shadow bent over her, peered from side to side and leapt into Shira, disappearing forever.
