Photo by Matthew Ansley on Unsplash
Though shadows and humans live in intimate contact, humans generally remain in the dark about the fascinating details of shadow society.
Like humans, shadows have evolved hierarchies. In the shadow world, the dullest are assigned to rocks and cliffs, objects whose shadows never need to jitter or sway, just glide predictably in response to the passing sun. A lifetime of slow shuffling may seem like punishment to humans, but to this lowest caste of shadows life is satisfactory. There is a stolid peasant accommodation to being a rock shadow.
Like humans, shadows devote great effort to the proper rearing of their young. When very young, promising shadow babies are assigned simple tasks, though they are given moderately dignified objects to shadow. They are usually assigned to human buildings for their first training, which allows them to become comfortable in the presence of humans. As they grow in skill, they are given greater challenges, assigned to blades of grass, where their mistakes will never be noted, then to telephone wires, and finally to bushes and trees. The agility they develop as vegetation shadows prepares them for possible careers as human shadows. This last has the highest status, though those who fail at shadowing humans – as most do -- reconcile themselves to the still noble status of vegetation shadows. There is no shame in their role, though it cannot be denied that they usually live a life of medium-dark yearning. (Oddly, little is known of animal shadows, though one suspects that proto-scholars in ancient Egypt left records which have yet to be discovered.)
The principal challenge of human shadowing, the challenge that separates the great from the good, is that human shadows are not allowed to follow the movements of their assigned people, called their “principals”. Rather, human shadows are required to anticipate, to fore-shadow, their principals’ movements. This skill is reputed to be the most difficult to attain among all inanimates, yet evolution has lofted the shadow community into such an advanced state that an estimated ten percent have the ability to foreshadow.
Only once in human history has this ability been documented. In the ninth century, the mystic Heloise of Avignon was able, by entering a trance state, to trick her shadow into erring in predicting her movements. Unfortunately, her discovery was lost to history when she was soon thereafter burned at the stake as a witch, her papers having been used as kindling. Legend provides our only account, including mention of a “shadowy figure” lurking at the edge of the assembled townsfolk.
Like human society, shadow society has evolved institutions of reward and punishment. Some small percentage of shadows exhibit anti-social behavior. The reasons for this aberration are as yet unclear, but malefactors are dealt with in proportion to the seriousness of their offense. The most common crimes appear to be, in order of decreasing frequency, casting darkness greater than required by physical optics, impeding the growth of seedlings, and salacious exaggeration of the female bosom. In all such cases, the guilty are forced back to the lowest level of the shadow hierarchy, paired not with plants or humans but with fixed interior artifacts, such as the bars in prison cells. In these circumstances, not even the slow movement of the sun is available to relieve the sting of punishment.
Finally, as with humans, shadows ultimately grow old and weary. For these worthies, cloudy days are arranged as holidays, with a regular complement of rainy weekends promised as a universal right. When even rainy weekends are not enough to relieve the burdens of old age, shadows are allowed to retire with dignity to various mines and subterranean labyrinths. Here is where shadow society interacts most intimately with human society, for when a shadow retires, its principal must die. This deep truth is the origin of the ancient legend that when dead men walk they cast no shadow.
Dr. Thomas Reed Willemain is an emeritus professor of statistics, software entrepreneur, and former intelligence officer. He holds degrees from Princeton University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His flash fiction has been published in Burningword Literary Journal, Hobart, Detritus Online and The Medley. His memoir, “Working on the Dark Side of the Moon: Life Inside the National Security Agency” was published in 2017. A native of western Massachusetts, he lives near the Mohawk River in upstate New York. Web site: www.TomWillemain.com.