There’s a Hole in My Shadow

It started on a Tuesday, though I’m not sure how I know that. Just after the sun went down, on  the wall of my house where my shadow usually stretched out long and quiet. I raised a hand to  touch my brow and when it came down over my eyes, there it was. A perfect circle missing right  at the centner of me. It didn’t blur at the edges, didn’t smudge, and it wasn’t a trick of the light.  It was exact, it was clean, and it was almost impossible. 

At first, I thought maybe there was a defect in the wall or maybe a defect in me so I moved and  stretched. I walked and I turned. I even tried to stand on my hands. The hole moved with me all  this time even after I stood under a different light. I closed the curtains, and opened them. But  mostly I just waited. I waited while staring at it. I waited while I piled spaghetti into a too small pot. I waited while I burned the sauce and put way too much salt in it. I waited while I ate and  still it wouldn’t go away. So I gave up and I went to bed. 

By the morning, the hole had started to take things. It seemed as picky as I was about taking. It  didn’t take any objects, it didn’t take things that I could hold, it didn’t take things with a price; but it still took. I reached for a familiar memory, something I like to think about in the mornings  and I found only static. There wasn’t even an echo in the space it left behind. The memories of a  little dog I was sure I had when I was younger was gone. The name of a girl I’d had a bad falling  out with, who’s hatred for I had kindred over many long months, unraveled into syllables and  floated away.  

I went to a hospital and the receptionist didn’t even bat an eye when I told her “There’s a hole  in my shadow.” She just handed me a form titled identity dislocation – Class C. Under symptoms,  I ticked Existential disruption. They got me in to see someone. He asked a few questions,  wouldn’t stop shuffling papers, and prescribed journaling and stillness.  

I took the bus home and while I waited for it a lady looked into the hole and started to cry. “It’s beautiful,” she said. “It reminds me of the day before I forgot who I’d been.” 

I didn’t say anything. My mouth felt full of ash. 

Over the next week, the hole grew warmer. It had this dry heat rising from it that met with the  gorge that rose every time I remembered I had it. It seemed to hum too. Always too low but  always silently audible. Dogs looked at my hole and ran. Streetlights seemed to dim and flicker  when I passed. People began to send me things in the mail and I’d try and throw them into the  hole. A key with no teeth. Coins with the same face on both sides. Pictures of strangers who  looked just a little bit like me to be notable.  

On the eighth day the hole started to widen. Sunlight now passed right through it. My fingers  would sink in just a few inches. I would reach for it not because I was curious, but because it  was inevitable. I waited until it could take all of me and I stepped in without even holding my  breath. I stayed in for a while then came back out. I was still in the same room. It was still the  same hour. I didn’t see anything there, I didn’t feel anything, I don’t even know if I remember where there was. Nothing changed and I didn’t learn anything. but these days, my shadow  follows me just a little behind. I can’t tell if its thinking of leaving me or just hesitant. The hole is  still there though. It isn’t bigger and it isn’t smaller. Its just there and it knows I’m here too.