His shadow knocks on my red door. I let it in before the wind blows it away. The candles keep the creature flickering in my space. If I turn on the electric lights, it’ll shatter like gray glass. We sit across from each other with my round table between us. The table is covered in my trade’s tools. Many folks think the tools tend to send me odd visitors like the disembodied shadow all the time, but they’d be wrong.
“I want to be free from him,” it whispers as soft as rain drops dripping down a spout. “But I know I need him. Can you help me?”
I consult the cards. The shadow is not my typical client and honestly, I haven’t been believing in anything I’m supposed to believe. The usual folks who come in claim to need advice on dating, investing, gambling, or anything the alcohol on their breath tells them to ask about on their dare to enter. Five travel websites rate me highly for any tourist stuck in this trap of a city. Three cards are shrouded in darkness.
“Please don’t touch them,” I say to the living void.
“I can’t help but tamper. It’s the him in me,” the shadow whispers. “Do you have other methods?”
“Well, if I smudge the space with incense and sage, you’d go with the smoke. How’d you detach yourself from him?”
“I don’t know,” it stutters. “I don’t know if I’m even an ‘I’ but I’m here, thinking, planning, seeking help, and speaking.” It begins to lighten up and disappear. I hold out my hands and it latches onto my ringed fingers like a legion of leeches.
“Stay with me,” we say in unison.
I see what the shadow sees. Its puppet master shakes hands, stirs concerns, and thinks not. The man uses his shadow to cover the light in others’ lives without knowing it. I close my eyes tight and tell the shadow it is bigger than the man it sprouted from.
“Use your height and your heavy weight to wrap around the man and pull him into his own darkness, instead of him whipping you out at others.”
“He likes to be in control,” the shadow whispers. “He controls me!”
“Remember, you can’t help but tamper. Boil the water he’s floating in,” I say. “Take off the chains and be free to do what you want and what you need to do.”
The shadow takes control of me. Cliches come out of my mouth as the ego is not in the shadow. It’s these cliches the shadow needs to hear. The Sun seeps into the windows and the shadow slithers away.
***
Now it’s night. The last frat boy exits my closing red door. I hear his waiting friend on my porch say a politician’s name. I uncover my old wooden TV. I clear up the mess of a machine shrouded in dust and waxy tablecloths. The old tubes inside come to life and the digital air enters the ancient contraption. The screen shows the same politician’s face and name, with a banner below scrolling the message; “Cause of death unknown…”
***
Weeks pass one-by-one. Each week comes with a new revelation which was in my old friend, the shadow, and brought to the light. His shadow continues to loom, continues to grow, and continues to cover and consume the ego of the dead man.
***
Years pass and the dead man’s name becomes a slur to sling at anyone one thinks is as much as a problem. I smile, proud of the shadow for slaying its creator. Its visit continues to inspire me to do what I do, despite the same lame clients with their simple, drunken questions.