You would be forgiven for believing your shadow to be a good-for-nothing idler; in fact, most of them are and I won’t go about making excuses for them. Yet, if you would dear reader, ponder a moment on how often it really is that you see your own shadow. By my estimation, this cannot be very often at all, especially not these days, when so often people remain inside all the day long with no sun on their back and only manmade light to cast any form of shade, to allow their shadows any time with them. Furthermore, there remains the question of where your shadow goes at night, while you sleep and the house is dark. Save for the odd moment when you wake up at 2 in the morning to use the restroom and pass by the light of a power strip or some other small device with perpetually lit buttons, this is the time when shadows slip out and run errands, the contents of which I am not particularly keen on exposing, given how much I have already said and how much more I am going to say.
Suffice to say that there was a certain shadow who had an errand to run the night of December 14 which was of the utmost importance. It was at the Curia Fati, the uppermost Court of Fate, that it had ended up on that Sunday night, and it was there that it had been standing in line for five and a half hours to be called on for its request to be heard. The shadow’s human would wake at 6:17 am, it knew, and there was precious little time left until then, until it must be back by his side when the sun rose that morning and they dressed themselves for work. This was known to the shadow for the simple reason that everything is known to one’s shadow: every movement you will ever make in your entire life, every decision, tilt of the head, flex of the hand, until death; from the moment you are born, all is known to your shadow.
The shadow knew how he would die, its human; from the moment he raised his small fist in the air under artificial hospital lights, it had known how it ended. That he would die twenty eight years later on December 15. It didn’t bother the shadow then, but it bothered it now.
Most of the other shadows were here disputing assignments, arguing with registrars, lounging about on every available seat in the waiting room to be called up. The great majority of them had issues not grave enough to take into the primary courtroom, but this particular shadow did, and it waited and waited until finally the bailiff swung wide the door to let it into the boundless chamber.
Destiny was blind, with a heavy hood and gold dipped eyelashes. The bailiff and reporter were the only others in the room—there were no trials by jury here.
“You have come to make an appeal.”
“I have, your honor.” The shadow’s very voice shook in the space. “I have come to ask you to repeal the fate of my charge.”
The head of Destiny tilted, though she made no comment.
“He is fated to die tomorrow, your honor, but he cannot die. He has a dependent for which he must care—a cat, whose name is Mouse. I would like to submit evidence to the court.” It held out another shadow, that of the docile cat which it had brought to court.
“What is your charge’s name?”
The shadow answered the question presented to it.
“He is fated to expire in four hours, at 8:37 am, December 15.”
“Yes, your honor.”
“You wish me to repeal his fate because he is the owner of a domesticated creature?”
“Mouse, yes.”
“I understand. Unfortunately, fate once assigned cannot be repealed.”
“With the utmost due respect, your honor, you have done it before.”
“We have, you are correct, in extremely limited circumstances. Each case is reviewed with equal diligence. As we say, this case has been reviewed and does not meet the qualifications—”
“What are these qualifications?”
A cold silence. “That is not for you to know.”
“How is one expected to meet qualifications they do not know?”
“They are not expected to. The changing of fate requires extenuating circumstances. The creature is not such a one.”
“Do you know how it ends?” The shadow stepped forward, ignorant of the bailiff. “He wakes for work at the convenience store in the morning. His alarm will sound and he will pick up his smartphone to check the time and stretch a fist in the air before taking himself into the shower. He dresses himself, he listens to the news as he brushes his teeth. He puts on his winter coat with the hole in it that he never bothers to mend, he walks the same route he does everyday and he is hit by a van just before he reaches the other side of the road. That cannot be a proper death for a being who made castles out of sand before they could even walk.”
“There have been worse deaths suffered and shorter lives lived.”
“That is the very issue, your honor, he has hardly lived a life. You see, he wanted to be a park ranger when he was a young, but he was not afforded even that. I hardly see him anymore; when he is not working, he hardly leaves the bed.”
“Your distress is understandable to us.”
“With the greatest respect, your honor, it does not appear as if it is understandable to you. You do not know what it is to be human.”
“Nor do you, little shadow.” Infinity vibrated through the space.
“Perhaps that is true, but it is the shadows who watch your cruel decisions unfold. What must one do to receive a respectable fate? Garner the sympathy of Destiny, a notoriously fickle and unprocurable dream? What makes one man a grocer and the other a champion? And why is one worthier than the other? You believe he is unimportant, unfit for a change of fate because he is a grocer, but there was a time that you, a nobody prophet, foretold only the fates of rocks and dust.”
The chambers became so silent, Destiny so still, the kind of preternatural stillness which only deities may manifest. “You are not the first to be dissatisfied with our rulings and you will not be the last. Should you get it into your mind to come to us again with this issue, the repercussions will be grave.” With finality the hearing was ended and the shadow was outside of the chamber it had not remembered exiting.
He was still asleep when the shadow arrived back, with only 6 minutes to spare until the alarm went off. It could not help itself, it clung to his side and watched him breathe. He had breathed the same since he was a little boy, lips parted just enough to puff small exhales out of from where his cheek lay on the pillow.
Mouse—and her shadow which had followed it back, weaving in and out of its steps all the way—leapt atop the comforter and stretched her orange body out in the languid way which suggested that she planned to stir up chaos momentarily. Her pink paws padded over his chest and she began her ear-shattering mewling for breakfast, snapping in half the last moments of peace it was to have with him. He rose, stretched out a hand, and pulled them into the shower. The shadow lay drifting along the tile flooring and countertops as he dressed himself, listened to the news while brushing his teeth. And out again just like everyday for the past twelve years, across the sidewalks and towards the convenience store they had worked at since he was 16, where dreams die.
Something had bothered the shadow the entire morning, however, something beyond the looming imminence of their death. It niggled at the back of the shadow’s thoughts, loud but indecipherable, much like Mouse.
Mouse! The very thing!
It had been ingrained in the shadow like a backwards memory, from the moment he was born, it knew how he would die. He would wake up at 6:17 am from an alarm—only, it had been Mouse who had woken him at 6:15 am.
They walked through the newly shoveled neighborhood, snow crumbling off of a nearby tree branch.
The shadow saw in front of it the future it had been so fearful of: its human, crumpled and his lips parted with shallow breaths, his cheek pressed against the asphalt, and the shadow, curled up beside him and forced to remain with his lifeless body as they were removed, forced to remain still and watch as he was cut open under the embalming knife under artificial lighting, and finally to perish itself when the lid was closed atop his casket, when he would need his shadow no more.
They stood at the crosswalk, the pixeled red hand across the street, a mechanical voice urging them to wait. The hand disappeared, a white walker in its place and they stepped into the street.
The shadow saw the van coming.
There was no point. Destiny’s word was law, and it was futile to attempt to change it. The shadow thought of Mouse and her little shadow, who had trampled over Destiny’s word as if it were cat litter. But no, were the shadow to intervene, then the surety in the future which it had always known would disintegrate before it.
It gazed up at its human, whose every moment was lived without foresight.
Maybe it is impossible to alter destiny, but one must try. And one must do it without knowing the ending.
8:37 am, December 15. For the first time in the daylight, the shadow moved out of step with its human.