What stole his mind the most, witnessing people's shadows. He wanted to
find the mysterious relation between their past, secrets, present intentions
and their shadows. He canceled the scientific fact of sun's presence to throw
this shadows wherever it wants, behind them, in front of them or beneath them.
He just loved the fact that what he never thought of before to have a relation
with things beyond sanity.
The brief study started with a woman who walked in fast steps. The tail
of her dress was weary and dusty while there was no mud in the street nor dust
in the air. She seemed one of the women who leaded
complicated life. Her hands
had apparent veins, her walk was fast, but fade. He tried to know how could
this happen. A woman who was weak as her, weary as her cloth, how could she
walk that fast? He set for himself a competition to walk faster than she did,
but as soon as he became next to her, trying breathlessly to cope up with her
steps, he heard her stolen breaths. He felt he would cry. He slowed it down as
he remembered that he simply wanted to see where the sun decided to throw its
shadow on this heroic lady. He found the shadow right behind her. He wondered
how fair this could be. A shadow, with its darkness and its featureless
appearance, could hide its ugly facts from this woman, and walk just behind
her. He thought. On and on. The woman could nearly be out of his sight, till he
seized his thoughts to stop throbbing and let the lady reach her final
destination to know the answer of this puzzle. And she did enter a school,
smiled to few parents standing by the gate, they cheered when they saw her. By
that time, he could only see the whole picture. A teacher who was sacrificing
her rest, her health, her wealth to get on time at the school, to teach, and
let her veins protrude on her skin to show her hard work. Her shadows just
followed her and walked behind her, cause she had a better aim, a brighter
task, an honorable mission to achieve. She didn't think about the darkness of
her past to let the shadow stand beneath her, she didn't think about the
fearful unknown future to be in front of her. She just thought about how great
her work was, that her shadow respected her dream and hid from her.
He tried hard not to smile; his pride
couldn't be hurt just for his working consciousness. Oh, what was next? What
was his second participant in his top secret, personal research?
A kid hit him accidentally while running, she turned to him and gave him
an apologetic look, she stared at the good looking man for a while till he
nodded his head with a smile as accepting her silent apology. The kid smiled broadly
and kept running. This one's shadow was beneath her, he thought thoroughly of
the reason, and he realized that kids' purity can never let them worry about
the past, and their naive brain, their absent responsibility and null
experience in life, make them not worry about future plans. All their thoughts
are stuck in the present, their plan to enjoy the sun in the morning and to
abuse all their energy to smile at strangers' smiley faces, show their respect
to their friends, flood their love on their parents, embrace their teachers'
affection and introduce their virtual friends to their real ones; that's why
their shadow is right beneath them, nothing to scare them from moving forwards,
nothing is following them to devour them into darkness.
His brain didn't give him a break from wondering at more people. Some of
them, their loud voices clouded his thoughts' clearness. Some, their
questioning stares at him, made him feel that he had been so superior to a good
society which could welcome him anytime, thanks to their humble hospitality and
thanks to one more unfortunate thing: Their superficial judgment at people who
can know as little as they do, but just their appearance is clean enough to
fool their expectations.
As soon as he thought that his mini-personal research was over, he found
another position of the shadow about a new participant in the secret study. A
young man who was walking bored rather than lost. His shadow was before him,
and it seems like laughing at his sad face. Disappointed face. A hopeless
figure which he made out of his beautiful youthful features. His backpack
seemed to be breaking his back to pieces while it was so obvious that it was almost
empty. The shadow was meanly carrying all kind of worries, extending its claws
to tomorrow with all their doubts of failing, collapsing future and shameful
disappointment. It was clear enough that the young boy obliged the observer's optimistic
views he formed about shadows previously to diminish and be introduced to
shadows' dark side. This guy had his fear of exams and how grades hid his whole
future and turned his vision to blurry, his ability to hear into an instruction
to be deaf, his moving limbs to paralyzed wheels & his cheerful thoughts to
a master of sarcasm. The young man wanted to pat on the boy's back and tell him
"it's going to be alright. It's fate, and what's in front of you now, the
shadow and its teasing darkness, are nothing but this scary movie you watch to finish your
tasteless dinner."
The man went to his work that day with unexplainable joy and
satisfaction, just like a scientist who had proven to the world that his theory
was correct. He thought that he should from time to time change his habits just
like the sea when it has slapping waves on windy days, smooth ones on sunny
days and the surfers-love ones whenever it likes. He believed God created
nature to be changeable to give to him as a human being an example how things
can't be stable and he has to change his routes; and as he observed nature, he
has to believe that his species is a piece of that nature and he has to meditate
through people too.
The man didn't notice his own shadow, not because he was busy observing
others, but because, deep inside, he feared to look at it, he feared it to be in
front of him as he knew how materialistic his priorities were and how they
could scare him to death. The fact is, my friend, this man hadn't any shadow. He
was a spirit of a dead young man, who lived free as a bird, rich as a
millionaire, happy as a four-year-old kid, but he didn't live long enough to watch
life's definitions via his bare eyes, not through his Ray-Ben shades. He didn't
live long enough to walk on the road in his sneakers instead of his luxurious
polished shoes. He didn't live long enough to satisfy his brain instead of
spoiling it with the mainstream trivial stuff. He didn't live long enough to
witness his shadow.
