Shadows

  He walked. Walked through roads he always had seen from the windshield glass of his car. The same roads, but what a difference, he felt! He felt the sun rays into his skin, penetrating his eyes. The first time to see people, older in age, younger. He let the older pass before him and the kids too, who are as old as him and felt an ego within their giggles, he hurried in front of them with a cocky walk. He felt he was rewarding the oldies for their patience towards the unknown sufferings they had, punishing the young for their foolishness and praising the kids for their innocent energetic joy. For the first time, he felt he is an angel drifting among people. He felt it was way better than driving, hidden inside a car, whispering insults directed to whom pumped stupidly into his car.

  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.