Me and My Shadow

Tenderly touching.

We walked in the courtyard slowly, as we often do, hand-in-hand. Tender touch. It made me happy, and he seemed to like it as well. This day, he had greeted me, almost, and danced a few cheerful steps with me. He was having a good day.

We turned down the path, the sun at our backs, and suddenly he looked down and came to a screeching halt. He pointed to the ground. I looked. It was my shadow. My shadow was freaking him out. Did he think it was a dark, featureless being rising from the bowels of the earth?

"It's my shadow, honey," I explained, demonstrating how it moved when I moved and pointing out that he had one, too. It was right next to mine, but the angle made mine rather tall and his much shorter. Just the opposite of how things really were. He shifted his weight tentatively, puzzled, observing the moving shapes on the smooth cement.

Satisfied, or having lost interest, or not remembering what we were looking at and why, he lifted his head and walked on with me at his side, hand-in-hand. Tenderly touching. I hoped, somehow, he felt happy, too.