There was movement in the corner of my perception, a flicker in the corner of my eye, the shadows in the
hallway stirred like coffee in a black cup. Something blacker
than the unlit corridor. A silhouette in
the umbra. A shadow within the shadows,
formless and lithe and moving on its own power.
I moved, I followed it down the walkway and up the stairs. There, at the end of the hall, the shadow man
faced me.
I turned
on the balls of my feet, and expertly it matched my movement. I stalked in, fear pushing me forward in the
desperate animal need to destroy all that I don’t understand. Because I fear what I don’t understand. And I don’t understand shadow folk tiptoeing
around in my house. I don’t understand
why they’re here and fear their dark and willful intentions. I step in and try to weigh my foe, I try to
gauge his fight potential with a skillful glance. His shoulders are as wide as mine, his legs
and arms easily as stout. So he spends
time in the gym trying to make himself strong.
Trying to make himself ready for a moment like this one. For trouble like me.
His training
won’t be enough.
I slide
in and he matches my speed, a skillful mimic, but he can’t match my
unpredictability –can’t copy the fluidity of madness which I have mastered to
bring chaos into the fray as an ally when I need it throw a left roundhouse
punch and he matches my speed trying to block it. While he’s preoccupied with that my right
hand snakes forward in a lethal straight punch that crumbles his face with a
loud crunch.
The lights
come up, an explosion of frequency cacophonous to the eyes and mind. It paralyzes me for an instant, half a moment,
but I turn around trying to pinion the source of the violent “click” that preceded
the artificial sunrise. There, at the
other end of the hallway was my mother in her comfy microfiber imitation velvet
blue robe, her wavy hair stifled beneath a nylon cap so tight that I could see
her thoughts through it.
“Boy”,
she sang the words; sarcasm and disgust intermingle like fresh irritation from
each syllable. “What have you done to my
mirror”?!
I turn
back to the shadow man. And all I see
where he had stood was a gaping maw in the sheetrock and splinters of silver
coated glass smeared with blood, my blood, where the fancy hall mirror had
been. Damn. There goes next week’s check.
