Blake

I was eight years old the first time I saw my shadow’s eyes. It was a cold, November morning, and the weatherman had predicted a sizable snowfall overnight. I was giddy about the possibility of a snow day, shooting upright in bed and peeling my blinds apart to gaze out at the white wonderland beneath me. I wish I had waited to turn around, to swing my legs off of my small bed where the weak light from outside would illuminate my small frame. The eyes weren’t filtered through my mind’s still brightly saturated view on the world. They looked similar to my own, nothing like I’d seen in cartoons or comics. They were a deep green, and a little bloodshot.  I kneeled down and touched one of them, startling a bit when it closed in protest. They were damp and spongy, like real eyes. Yet somehow, they were two dimensional, staring up at me without blinking. 

 

I couldn’t understand it. What was going on? Was this normal? Why had I never seen eyes on anyone else’s shadow? When my mother came upstairs to tell me the good news, I was on the verge of tears. I stepped back into the sun and gestured down at my shadow, insisting that it had eyes. She walked over and bent down to examine the culprit. She tilted her head from side to side, clearly exaggerating her “hm”’s and “huh”’s. At last, she proclaimed that my shadow looked just fine to her and asked me what I wanted for breakfast. 

 

 

Perhaps things had been too normal for me. I’m not a big believer in God, but if there is one, perhaps He figured that I just wasn’t special enough all on my own. As the winter days melted into weeks, as eight turned into nine, I learned how to smile even when my shadow was staring up at me. How to laugh around other people, and even how to occasionally lose myself in a true moment of happiness. The eyes almost faded into the background of my life. 

 

 

I started carrying an umbrella everywhere at fourteen years old. I told everyone that I burned easily, though I’d get weird looks during the winter. I could never bring it into school though – whenever I sat in an unusually sunny spot, I’d make myself stare at the teacher, or look at my classmates’ shadows, pretending they were mine. So flat and simple, they were a reflection of an outline with no unique qualities. I wondered how that level of privacy and freedom felt. 

 

One time, my shadow winked at me while I was taking a test. I kicked my desk back in shock and hurried off to the bathroom without waiting for my teacher’s approval. My favorite was the one single-stall right next to the gym: there were no windows, and the walls were a dark, exposed brick. It was beautiful. I didn’t bother going back to class. 

 

When my mom picked me up that afternoon, I collapsed into the passenger seat with a hefty sigh. She didn’t ask me how my day was, or what I wanted for dinner, or if I wanted to watch a movie later. Her eyes were glued to the road in front of her, her lips tight and straight. The only thing breaking the silence was the quiet radio, which was mostly static.

 

“There’s supposed to be a thunderstorm later,” I finally piped up just as we were pulling into our driveway. My mother wordlessly turned off the car and turned to look at me reluctantly. 

 

“I got a call from your teacher. What is this about you running off during a test?” She asked as though she didn’t know the answer already.

 

“I had to use the bathroom. I wasn’t feeling good.”

 

“You were in there for thirty minutes.”

 

“Maybe there’s a stomach bug going around?” 

 

She rubbed the bridge of her nose and sat back in her seat. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. 

 

“Do you understand how I feel…” her voice was trembling, “…having to explain that my daughter is afraid of her own shadow?”

 

“I’m not – I’m not afraid of it anymore.” I swallowed the lump rising in my throat and tried to keep myself from shouting. “It just blinked at me. I was startled.”

 

My mom just clasped her hand over her mouth and stared straight ahead while I picked at my nails. I tried lying to her for years about the eyes being gone, but she never believed me. I wasn’t making this up for attention, she knew – just going crazy. 

Eventually, my mother’s quiet gasps and sobs became too much to listen to, and my thumb was bleeding from all of the picking. I grabbed my backpack from the backseat and went inside, making a beeline for my room. My bed felt like a warm hug after everything that had happened. I wrapped myself in my blankets and shut my eyes, falling into a dreamless sleep. When I woke up, the sun had gone down. 

 

I stretched under the blankets. My mom was probably downstairs, making dinner, or so I thought. It was probably best not to bother her. 

 

I rolled onto my side and let my eyelids droop down. Just before I shut them – I swear, just before I shut them, I saw my shadow. 

 

No, I didn’t see a dark outline without a lightsource. But it was there – those same eyes were looking down at me. I didn’t get a good look at them, but even just a glimpse was enough to wake me up again for good. The darkness of my room no longer felt safe. I called out for my mom, to no avail.

 

I spent the rest of the night scouring every corner and crevice of my room, making sure nothing was watching me. As for my mom, I’m fairly certain she slept in the car.

 

 

Things got better, at least for a little while. Life wasn’t sunshine and rainbows, but after a while I realized that my shadow had never hurt me. It was always stuck to a wall or the floor. What was the worst it could do, I figured? In college, I started to sleep with the lights off again. If I saw the eyes on the wall or ceiling, I’d just bid them goodnight. 

 

It was almost like having a built-in friend. My shadow had been with me longer than most of the people in my life at that point: I hadn’t made any close friends as a kid, and while my mom was still around, our relationship was frigid. Whenever I couldn’t sleep, I’d talk to him. I named him Blake. He accompanied me to parties, stayed with me while completing my exams, and solemnly gazed up at me whenever I cried from homesickness or heartbreak. I almost started to wish that he could talk back. 

 

Now, I really wish that he would’ve talked back. 

 

I lived on the first floor of my dormitory in my senior year of college. It wasn’t ideal – nothing but upstairs neighbors – but the room was relatively big and poorly lit, which gave me some still-needed privacy from Blake. As much as I’d grown to like him, I still shivered if I stared at him for too long, or thought too much about how he could appear in the dark. There were whiteboards that lined two of my walls, and if Blake ever pressed himself against them, I’d take the opportunity to draw a silly hat on him, or adorn him with flowers. Something to show that I forgave him for all of the discomfort that he caused me. But none of that helped in the end. 

 

Perhaps I had left my window open from the day, trying to enjoy some fresh air before falling asleep. Perhaps I had forgotten to lock my door, or the lock had been broken. I don’t know. All I know for sure is that during my senior spring break, I woke up and saw a man in my room. A human man. 

 

He wasn’t a student – he stank of body odor and cigarettes, and in the dim lighting I could make out an unkempt beard. He was rustling around in my drawers, looking for jewelry or cash if I had to guess. As he stepped to the side, I saw Blake, staring not at him, but at me. The man mumbled something incomprehensible to himself, and perhaps it was hearing his voice that made everything click for me. 

 

I was being robbed. There was a man in my room looking through my belongings, and my dormitory was devoid of other students. Instinctively, I screamed. The man stopped and turned to me, frozen in place in front of my dresser. 

 

“Blake,” I yelled, my gaze darting from the man in my room to the eyes on my wall. “Blake, do something!” 

 

“Blake?” the man cocked his head. “Who the hell are you talking to?” I didn’t answer.

 

“Help me,” my voice was hushed and frightened, “please. Can’t you do something?” 

 

I don’t know what I expected. Shadowy tendrils to emerge and tear the man limb from limb? A mouth to suddenly appear and swallow him whole? Blake’s gaze never left mine, even as I pleaded with him. Even as the man backed out of my room and sprinted down the hallway. I couldn’t bring myself to follow him – a mixture of fear and shame glued me to my bed. I could’ve called campus police. Hell, I could’ve called 911. But instead, I pleaded with my own shadow. 

 

It was approaching dawn when I finally got up and out of my own head. Blake’s eyes were nothing more than a faint outline against my wall at this point. 

 

“If you’re not here to hurt me,” I whispered, “and you’re not here to help me, what do you want from me?” I waited to see if there would be any reply. Any shift in where he looked, any blinking, anything. Nothing. My eyes began to burn, and I yelled, “Answer me!”

 

I brought a finger to one of his eyes again, and it felt as squishy as ever, closing again in response to my touch. But nothing more. I dropped to my knees and I began to sob. I was mad at myself for thinking my shadow could ever protect me, mad at the man for robbing me, but most of all, mad at Blake for doing nothing. 

 

I lost over five hundred dollars in belongings that night, and checked myself into a psychiatric unit the following morning. If Blake didn’t want to be feared or accepted, I wondered if it would be possible to just get rid of him altogether. 

 

The psychiatric hospital was nice enough. The walls were an unthreatening blue, and the staff all seemed to look at me as if nothing was wrong. But the lighting was so watery that Blake was barely visible most of the time. For better or for worse, I felt almost naked without him. 

 

During my intake, I explained my history with my shadow. The snow day when I was eight, how I’d tried to fend him off, how I tried to keep him close, how none of it seemed to make things better for me. The psychologist nodded and took notes. When I was done speaking, he looked over his notes and pressed his lips together. 

 

“Firstly,” he started, closing his notepad, “I hope you know that there’s nothing your shadow – Blake – could have done to help you…” His expression had shifted from professional to almost infantilizing. “…but I also don’t think he’s capable of hurting you either.” I looked down, my cheeks reddening. Before I could respond, I caught a glimpse of him beneath my chair. He was faint, but it was him. 

 

The psychologist and the rest of the staff were going to try and convince me that Blake wasn’t real, that medications would make him go away. They would tell me that he was harmless, and that perhaps there’s something internally that I needed to face in order for him to leave me alone. But I knew – that first day, sitting in front of the psychologist, when I looked down and locked eyes with Blake, we both knew that they were all wrong. 

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