Nightshadows

Nightshadows

By Graham Swanson  

Shadows of windows, ripped awnings, the harvest pole in the middle of the street bent in the collapse of shrieking wind. The shadow stranger lurked in the strained light of midnight welcome. Innocent deaths occurred far away inside the homes beyond the sleeping, beyond the businesses streets, close to slick stones pressed into the ancient ground. Prisoners who rebelled astride war rats once reigned here as mighty kings, but once the storms passed mere stories exist alone.  Remains get dropped here sometimes in garbage bags or in coffins, other times hung from the power lines, even laid out in the middle sidewalk peacefully outstretched in the lamplight and decorated in lashes.  The shadow stranger comes here but never looks into the windows to rob the stores, nor does he drop off love notes to teenage runaways. He just stops and disappears as his shadow does as he enters the brightest part of the pavement.

The humming lamp eats him, and only his shoes are left in the morning found by the pointy-eared children harvesting aluminum to sell. The gray-skinned, yellow-haired kids flee into the alleys but they never get far. The light calls them back at night, and they are struck blind and disfigured. They swear at the sign of the fabulous monster, once the children are gone, the man in the shadow walks back from the same direction in the same clothes, concealed by darkness, never brightening even as he gets nearer. The light is quiet, but like a silent film, some linger around the green paint, touch the wet metal, and let the light warm them from the mist gales. They hear voices within.

The city shut off power after wildfires encroached electrical generators. The lamp still glowed like a platinum island in the darkness. The worms rose from the dirt and squirmed into the light and the dead bodies of the decomposed gathered to eat. The monster of the light growled in pleasure. Its children ate and danced until they joined the vapor.

A woman rolled her stroller by one night and bumped into the shadow stranger. At first, she acted embarrassed and cast a blanket over the half-empty whiskey bottle and plastic bags containing her possessions. He didn’t stare, he didn’t even try to talk, all he did was raise both hands to his face, and emitted a shallow howl as he pulled them away, and she beheld the smooth flesh and red cheeks of a smiling child. She hurried away as he tightened his color and put both hands on his shoulders to slump back into the lamplight. That night her godmother heard all about the encounter, and she advised her not to worry about the spirits of the city. All the lost souls find their way to that lamp corner, and the dark shadow who is only revealed when he wants to be, guides them to black castles in the afterlife.