Eyes.

Blinded.

Only slowly does vision creep back and pierce through the veil of endless white. Shadows emerge. My pounding heart calms down. We've yet to lose. It is just another sunrise.

 

They are the ones you see every day on the street. They seem to mind only their own business, trudging along on a rainy day with their hands tucked neatly into their pockets. Their shoulders are hunched, boots kicking at the rain with idle hatred as they faces sink into the shadows of the hoods. Lost meaning. They seemingly just walk on by.

Those are such average people with their average clothing, their average coats, their average shoes and boots, their average lack of enthusiasm, their average and systematic hate of anyone different, their average jobs, their average minds, their average opinions, their average ideals and their average conclusions.

That brief glance across at me - no one would consider it being a hateful, despising glance, a staring contest of a maximum of two seconds. Even if I dumbly stare back at them longer than they at me, I always feel I am losing, even though I know I won, since I always win. It's as if, deep inside, they had an awareness of what seperates me from them, and this caused them to hate me - me, personally.

And since I can't tell them apart, I never know which of them wants to leap on me and attack, next. I can't tell them apart, at least not through what I can see in them. And I can see everything in them, because they lack a shadow, because they are glass, and their transparency is absolute.

I've not been attacked, of course. Not by these docile creatures. Yet they scare me that way. I truly sympathize with their situation and understand them, but they refuse to understand me. I would have no problem defending myself, but they scare me. Honestly. Even if I am cracking a smile now in telling you this.

They keep yearning for the sun.

I can tell that.

They seek it's warmth.

Even the local plant life does, and - so I have been told - it does this elsewhere, too. Plants, so they say, have an instinctive fear of the shadow and run away from it (at their own pace, but they run), up into the sky at a maddening pace in plant terms, the individual leaves competing violently to be touched by what is, right now, a dim rose glow of sunlight stretching across the sky. Such fear is evident in both plants and the shadowless - a throbbing fear of the dark shadows the self casts upon the world.

 

Confronting the shadow is extremely hard - I know from experience, from terrible, maddening experience, from facing it and wishing I had never turned around. Such pain. But it was worth it. By god, it was worth it. I wish such pain upon no one - not even my worst enemies. Especially not my worst enemies.

 

I will tell you what I saw. I'll try to be coherent. But if you haven't seen it, I cannot guarantee you can even imagine...

I spent half of my life as a Shadowless. Someone told me I have a shadow rather early in my life, but like most, I put it off as a fact you need to accept, less than it being anything that should be further investigated. Indeed, it is almost heresy to do so, is it not? Shadows have no substance, they are a lack of light, are they not? Do you still believe in Santa Claus aswell?

Pardon. I must show understanding. Remember, the pain, remember, you can't ask these things from everyone.

I still recall the otherwise so average day of a few years ago, where I turned around. It caught my eyes that day, for some reason.

I think it was staring back at me. I was sure it was staring back at me. So close. Overwhelmingly present. Not much bigger than I, but many times more powerful - edges fading into the world and clutching it, clawing at it, all-consuming. Silent, icy glare piercing my very soul, so angry that I turned around and found it, and made it my slave. It is without mass, gliding over the pavement without leaving any traces of it's rape of the light, without even leaving traces of it's existence. It has no face.

By god, it has neither face, nor limits. It has no identity. It has the world.

What was that? There was a brief thought. It is mine. I am responsible. No! Am I really? Is this brute my construction? Have I set it lose upon the world? Is it a relation I do not want? Is it, in the end, only me? Do I hate myself? Do I want? What do I want? What does it want? Why did I do this? It is too late now, I can't forget, ever again. Despair rises. Why does it follow me? Why can I not outrun it? I am not moving, petrified by fear. What can you do in the presence of the perfect hunter?

Please... please, don't consume me. I'm too young to die...

 

You do still believe in Santa Claus, don't you?

But we're not talking about Christmas. No, the subject is much more serious than that.

 

So I was facing my shadow. I was realising all these things. I was scared, I was in pain. I was very close to dropping to the ground, begging for mercy, in tears. I don't know what brought about the realisation of the power I had just discovered. My power. I had lived with my shadow for so long. This was an extension of myself that had so long dictated my life through my subconscious - now that I was conscious of it, it could do me no harm. It was all an illusion. Even the anger - how can something with no expression be angry?

I felt cold, but I felt release.

I felt like myself. I was complete. I was me and my shadow.

I still am, to this day. I own my life and the entire world - it all belongs to me in a sense that goes far beyond the definition of mere property.

 

I do not wish this pain upon anyone, as I have said. I'm not evil enough, shadowed or not. I have a certain ruthlessness throbbing in my veins for self-preserving reasons, but not to infiltrate the belief structures of others. I cannot remember signing a contract "Bring happiness to the world" when I was born and I don't plan to. The answer I have to offer is inhumane, anyway. The pain, don't forget. You either face it willingly, or not at all.

And they really cannot help it.