SHADOW

She hangs back, alone, though she is standing close enough to feel the warmth of his body. He is talking to some friends from work and forgets to introduce her. He doesn't mean to forget her, but she is still hurt. She looks around self-consciously, wondering if she should just introduce herself or walk away. Turning, she sees her shadowy reflection in the store window a few yards away, superimposed over, but with less substance than the leering mannequins.
"That must be how I appear to him," she thinks.
He finishes his conversation with laughter, his dimples cutting charming lines in his cheeks, and begins walking again. She follows, musing that he notices her about as much as he notices his own shadow. She reaches out her hand to take his. Before they touch, she withdraws; so afraid is she that he won't notice.
She remembers a time when they used to touch often; his rough callused hands as light and gentle in touch as a warm summer breeze. She feels that now he only gives her attention when he wants something, then quickly withdraws again, leaving her feeling more alone than before. She awaits his expressions of love, begging unobtrusively from a distance, like a hungry dog that's been kicked one too many times while waiting for it's master to drop a morsel of food. But to her the emptiness within is worse than any hunger- she doesn't have the power to fill the void.
Days pass into weeks, into months, into years and the distance between them grows. She feels like he doesn't even know she is there- a ghost. He looks at her and doesn't seem to see her. She puts on her sexiest green negligee, which matches her emerald eyes, and asks him how she looks.
"Fine,” he says with scarcely a glance.
Nearly screaming in frustration, she walks away feeling embarrassed and angry.
"Doesn't he know that I just want him to notice me?"
Her love for him is strong, she is sure she can reach him if she could find the way, the magic key that will open his heart and allow him to show the love she knows he feels for her. Every night she stays awake until he leaves for work, not wanting to miss that one expression of love that will make everything OK again. Every night she goes to bed disappointed. Tonight's no exception.
"I might as well not even exist!"
She climbs into bed and begins to cry.
She looks in the mirror across the room and has a difficult time seeing herself. Heart pounding, she sits up. Through her body she can see the picture of the ocean, huge breakers crashing against a cliff, on the wall behind her.
"What is happening to me?" She yells and discovers she has no voice.
"Oh what have I done?" She thinks as she climbs out of bed.
She can't feel the floor beneath her feet. She can't feel the breeze that's blowing in through the window making the sea green, lace curtains flutter like injured butterflies. She aimlessly wanders the house all night, waiting for him to come home and help her.
Voices whisper to her, "you gave too much." "You lost yourself."
He arrives home shortly after the sun colors the horizon with its first golden kiss of the new day. He looks in their bed and she is not there. He reaches out, touches her pillow, not realizing she is beyond his reach. On the floor next to their bed he sees a silvery flash, bending down he finds her wedding ring. As he picks up the ring, intricately etched ivy leaves on the band catch the first rays of sun coming in through the window and silver sun fairies dance along the walls. He searches the house calling her name, her ring tightly clenched in his fist. Becoming more frantic as the fruitlessness of his search becomes apparent, he calls the police.
Nothing is missing. No signs of foul play.
"We're very sorry, there's nothing we can do right now. If she still hasn't contacted you by tomorrow at this time then give us a call and we'll list her as a missing person."
The officer leaves quietly, the sun flashing off the silver badge on the front of his hat as he shakes his head in pity.
He runs through the house ripping pictures off the walls, overturning furniture and breaking everything in his path. He is yelling her name and swearing to every God known and unknown that he will never shut her out again. Exhausted, he drops to the floor, cutting his hands and knees on broken glass. Looking at the blood on his hands he wishes he could wrap his arms around her. "I will give up everything if she will just come back to me!”
He is crying now, his body aching as each sob is wrenched from deep within his soul. He has never felt such pain, known such loss.
He feels his heart beating within his chest but expects the rhythmic drumming to stop at any moment; so convinced is he that he is dying of a broken heart. She tries to comfort him but her hands slip through him. She is reaching out to him, yelling to him but he can't see her, hear her, or feel her. He gets up to close the blinds then wanders aimlessly through the darkened house unable to sleep, and his shadow follows.