In The Thick

Walking down the sidewalk I stared at my shadow cast by the street light. It was in front of me, but fading from black to gray and stretching further into the darkness ahead. My shadow disappeared, and then from behind, appeared again. It slowly crept on me and finally caught up to me, and then after directly under the light it slowly gained on me and beat me to my steps ahead. It was the last light on the sidewalk, and I knew the little cat and mouse game was coming to an end. I watched the shadow change from black to gray and then fade into the black of the night.

The sidewalk had ended, and begun grass. The pine straws were scattered every so carefully as to just break up the perfectness of the uneven grass. I thought of my shadow, no longer visible to me, hiding. How it had turned to gray, changed from what I once was, grown in size, but faded in color. I thought about five lights ago, five shadows ago, five years ago. I had changed, grown, but changed color in time. The thought struck me lightly and the magnitude never fully hit me until I realized how simple an idea it was, that it's simplicity had somehow equaled poignancy.

I tried to remember the me of five years ago, a man, rather a boy I would not recognize. I have come so far compared to that man with so few questions. I had learned so much, and now questioned so much more. A weird contradiction I suppose the me of five years ago wouldn't, couldn't recognize. My arrogant youth still around, but nearly as faded as my shadow in the street lamp of life. I spun and turned around, looking at the sidewalk I had now been off of. It was far in the distance, but close enough to imagine my steps to it, but not know them for sure. I looked at the lights, their shadows cutting angles in the night sky and bringing life in the dark and unknown. I had been in those lights once, but no longer. Now wandering, walking, wading in the night. My shadow of past and future in question, not around, gone. No preconception, no misconception. I spin back around, and stride into the dark, resolute.


Confused as it should be...