The Lovely Shadow

by Cory Hiles

  I paused from my colloquy and pretended that I was listening to Joe’s response to me.

  ‘Hey, Squirt,’ he said in my mind. ‘I’m doing great. Heaven is pretty cool. I got your back Little Brother, you’ll be alright.’

  I had hung on Joe’s every word while he was alive, and as a result I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if it was a high quality recording. As it had always been in life, his voice was reassuring.

  “Thanks, Joe,” I said. “Do you think you’ll be able to come back and visit me soon?”

  ‘I don’t think so, Squirt,’ Joe’s voice said in my head. ‘It uses all the energy, Bro. I used everything yesterday. But you’ll be ok. Just hang in there—June is coming, and then everything will be ok.’

  “What do you mean, Joe? What do you mean, ‘energy?’ Joe…Joe?”

  I could not force a response in my mind, and I was really confused. I was pretty sure that I had been making up Joe’s responses to me, but I couldn’t understand what I (he?) had meant by using energy.

  I was also rather confounded by the statement “June is coming.” It was already June; June fourteenth, as a matter of fact. I called out to Joe for clarification a few more times, but there was no longer any response, except for voices I was clearly making up in my head, and those voices had no answers to my questions.

  I was still pondering the implications of making up concepts that I didn’t understand myself when I was nearly frightened out of my skin by the buzzer on the dryer. My pizza pockets were done.

  The last vestiges of daylight had vanished from the door overhead and I fumbled my way to the dryer blindly. I found my supper there and tootled back to my bed to eat.

  Although the pizza pockets had thawed out and warmed up all the way through, they had not gotten sufficiently hot enough to melt the cheese and they were not exactly wonderful. But they did satiate my hunger and allowed me to go to bed with a full belly.

  When I slept that third night, I slept dreamlessly, but still woke on my fourth day with a strange uneasiness in my heart. I thought hard about my night, but could not find any memory of a nightmare or of any other dream that would cause me to wake up feeling weird.

  I set about my morning ritual of waste removal and bed removal, and hoped the unease would pass as I distracted myself. It did not pass.

  I found another package of Pop Tarts and sat down in my chair, munching and pondering. I finally let my thoughts wander back to my prayer the previous night, and the cryptic things my brain (Joe?) had said.

  “What the heck do energy and June mean, Joe?” I said out loud, spitting out a few crumbs as I spoke.

  There was no response.

  The more I considered those two mysteries, the more I was convinced that I’d come up with an answer for the energy bit at least. I remembered a book that Joe had owned and I had read. It was about all sorts of paranormal mysteries like mythical monsters, UFOs, witches, Stonehenge, and the like. It also had a large section devoted to ghosts.

  According to the book, ghosts were the lingering souls of people who had died, but who could not, for one reason or another, leave this physical realm and move on to the spiritual realm. Many theories were presented to try and explain why these spirits hadn’t departed.

  One theory was that the ghost was not aware that it was dead. Death had apparently come over the person so swiftly that they never knew it had hit them.

  Another theory was that the spirit had some urgent, yet unfinished business that it needed to take care of before it could move on. Perhaps the person had been murdered, the book had postulated, and wanted their killer to be brought to justice before they would move on.

  A third theory was that perhaps the ghost remained behind because they were too afraid to enter into the other side.

  The book presented several more theories on why ghosts existed, but presented precious little in the way of speculation regarding how a ghost was able to actually exist.

  The only theory on the day to day existence of the ghost that the book presented was that a ghost needed energy to manifest itself or to manipulate objects in the physical realm. The energy required by the ghost would most likely be absorbed from the environment via electromagnetic fields.

  The author suggested that lightning storms, running water, and even batteries could all be excellent sources from which a ghost might draw energy, but once the ghost had depleted the energy it had stored up from these sources, it would be unable to interact in the physical realm again until it had replenished its stores of energy.

  There was no evidence, according to the author, to indicate how long it took a ghost to recharge its energy supply, nor even how a ghost stored energy.

  The author went on to suggest that knockings and voices were the most prevalent form of supernatural activity because they were forms of communication that required the least amount of energy.

  If what was said in that book was true, that would mean that Joe had used tremendous amounts of spiritual energy to manifest himself to me in the basement, and even more to illuminate the space.

  Perhaps that was why he never spoke when he was present. He needed to conserve all his energy to materialize and illuminate; two things he felt were far more important to my needs at that moment than speech would have been.

  Those philosophies of energy consumption would also explain why he had dimmed slowly, rather than remaining fully visible until he departed. His energy was being slowly depleted during his entire visit, draining him of the ability to remain fully visible.

  Those same philosophies would explain why he dimmed so suddenly and disappeared completely when he got angry about our mother. Anger is generally a wasted emotion that uses tremendous amounts of energy.

  It must have been a huge drain on Joe’s energy reserves to light up the basement and show me that there was nothing to fear in the darkness.

  When it dawned on me how much Joe had sacrificed himself to help me, I was so overcome with love for my brother that I broke down. My chest seemed to swell with warm pressure, expanding from the inside, filling up with my love and admiration for Joe the way a drowning swimmer’s chest fills up with water when he tries to take that last breath.

  I sat in my chair and cried for nearly half an hour, choking out broken thanks to my brother in between giant sobs. I tried to get myself under control, but my attempts were unsuccessful. I felt like I was going to explode if I didn’t get all my appreciative tears out.

  When I was finally able to calm myself I was more convinced than ever that my brother had visited me in the basement two days before. I was not convinced, however, that it was really his voice I’d heard the night before while I was praying.

  I could have very easily had an unconscious memory of what that book had said about ghosts and energy usage floating about in my brain, planting suggestions into Joe’s imagined conversation.

  I pondered all the information I could remember from the book for a little bit, trying to remember each of the various theories it had presented regarding why ghosts even existed. I couldn’t fit Joe’s appearance into any of the opinions expressed in the book.

  Joe was not a spirit with a vendetta. He did not have anybody to blame for his demise. He had been killed when the car he was driving slid on some black ice as he came around a corner too fast on a rural back road and slammed through the guardrail. His seatbelt kept him from being thrown from the vehicle, but the whiplash he suffered during the impact broke his neck.

  While the broken neck did not kill him, it did cause massive swelling which slowly cut off his air supply through his windpipe, causing him to suffocate before anybody could find him and alert the paramedics.

  Having died somewhat slowly, Joe was not a candidate for the Sudden-Death-Spirit-Doesn’t-Know-He’s-Dead philosophy. Joe knew he was dead, or at least I was pretty sure he knew.

  He didn’t seem to be puzzled at all by his own sudden appearance in the basement. He knew he was there, he knew I was there, he see
med to know how I’d gotten there, and he knew why he’d come there. He was a man on a mission—or a manifestation on a mission I should say.

  Joe also did not strike me a candidate for the Too-Scared-To-Move-On category. In life, Joe had been the bravest man I knew. Always a man of action, he never let anything stand in his way.

  I remembered the evening of Joe’s first real date with a real girl from school. He had been terrified to go, but did not let that fear stop him from going out to pick her up and take her to the movies. That was only two weeks before he died.

  ‘No, Joe’s not in the scared category,’ I thought to myself. ‘So where does his appearance fit in?’ I wondered.

  I finally decided that there must either be a category from the book that I could not remember, or one they had failed to include. The missing category should be the ‘Guardian Angel’ category.

  Sometimes, the people who have died love the people they’ve left behind so strongly that they keep a watchful eye on them from the afterlife, and when they see a desperate need in a loved one, they find a way to come to them and offer whatever help they are able to.

  That category (after I invented it) seemed to me to be a perfect fit for Joe’s appearance, and disappearance as well. Joe had moved on, this world was no longer his home and he could not stay here.

  I was glad for Joe that he had moved on. I was so lonely that it seemed to almost cause a physical pain in me, but I would suffer a thousand lonesome pains before I asked Joe to leave the comfort of Heaven to stay with me. If anybody deserved a blissful eternity, it was my big brother, Joe.

  I had long since finished my package of Pop Tarts, and decided that I wanted the last package that still remained in the box. Deciphering supernatural mysteries had turned out to be hungry work.

  I grabbed the last package and dropped the empty box onto the pile of garbage that was rapidly accumulating beside my chair/bed area.

  ‘Hmm,’ I thought, while munching on my frosted fruit filled treat, ‘I’m really going to have to find a better way to manage my trash. I’m not a pig, and I’m not going to become one in the dark! Besides, the trash may attract mice, or even bugs.’

  I shuddered a bit as I visualized flesh eating beetles swarming over empty Pop Tart wrappers, hot dog wrappers, empty cereal boxes, and whatever other trash I had thrown in my little pile. I made a mental note to clean up as soon as I was done with my ratiocinations.

  I had made logical sense of my (Joe’s) mention of energy from the previous night, but still could not wrap my brain around ‘June’. I had no idea what it could possibly mean.

  “June is coming, and then everything will be better.”

  Saying it out loud did not help to reveal the solution to the riddle. Sighing, I got up exasperated and decided that when the time was right, the mystery would reveal its own solution.

  I moseyed into the pitch blackness of the back of the basement and found an old garbage sack filled with clothes I had long since outgrown and dumped it out, being careful to dump the clothing far enough away from everything that I would not be likely to stumble over them later.

  As much as I had developed a new found need for tidiness and order in the world around me, that need did not extend into areas of the basement into which I could not see the disorder, and I felt no shame in making messes back there.

  I brought the bag back into my dim sitting area and picked up all my trash. I then carried the bag over to the trash can near the dryer and emptied it into it. Since I was already near the appliances I decided to do some laundry. I really didn’t like the idea of my soiled rags just sitting there in that basket, drawing flies.

  I dumped my rags, and yesterdays towel into the wash and figured I may as well throw the clothes I had been wearing in with them. That was when I realized that I was still wandering around naked.

  It frightened me to find that only a few days in the dark had already robbed me of enough civilized culture to no longer notice, or care, that I was naked.

  ‘Well, I’ve been naked this long, I guess. A little while longer won’t kill me,’ I thought as I scooped up all my clothing and tossed them in the washer.

  I climbed up and got the soap from above the washer, dumped it in, and set the clothes to washing.

  With the washer going, breakfast eaten, bedroom put away, day room set up, and all my garbage cleaned up, I decided it was a good time to try and find a good book in the box I’d dragged over.

  I scooped up several books and headed up the stairs with them. I set them on the top step and tried the door; still locked, just as I knew it would be. I had become fairly certain that my mother was gone, and may not be coming back.

  I tried not to think of how this situation would turn out if she never returned, and instead sat down to see if I’d dug up any treasure in the book box. The first book I picked up from the stack was Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

  It was another book that I’d never read and did not appear to be a romance novel, so I was instantly intrigued. I flipped it open and read the entire book in a matter of a couple hours.

  It was marvelous. The relationship between George and Lenny reminded me so much of me and Joe that it made me just a little weepy.

  George was always there for Lenny, no matter what stupid thing Lenny did. Sometimes George was a little harsh with Lenny, but only when he had to be, kind of like when Joe would have to punch my arm to keep me from opening my big mouth and getting into trouble with our mother.

  I had originally thought that Lenny was just retarded and I could easily imagine myself in his role, but when I got to the end of the book and realized that Lenny was hearing voices, I tried to disassociate myself from him because he had gone a bit crazy, and I was NOT going to be crazy like my mother.

  As much as I disassociated myself from crazy Lenny, I still empathized with needy Lenny. Lenny needed George just the way I needed Joe. Lenny looked up to George the way I looked up to Joe.

  There was a little part of me that wished Joe could save me from my troubles by putting me down like an old dog, the way George had done to Lenny. But it was only a very small part of me. My desire to continue living was still pretty strong at that point, but I wasn’t sure how long that desire would hold out down there in the basement.

  Deciding that I did not like the morbid course my thoughts were taking, I decided to skip lunch and get back to my dictionary for a little while. Having lunch would only give me time for introspection, and I had no more desire of that.

  It seems odd, in retrospect, that being unable to communicate with the world due to my imprisonment inspired in me a passion for learning new words in order to communicate more efficiently.

  The new game I came up with for the dictionary was finding a word and trying to guess its meaning before reading the definition. That game kept me busy for quite some time.

  Occasionally as I randomly flipped through pages I’d come across a page I’d already been on before. When that happened I’d test myself on the words on those pages to see if I remembered their definitions- most of the time, I did.

  Finally, my aching back and rumbling tummy forced me to give up on word games and head down for some food. On the way down the stairs I had one minor misstep near the bottom and nearly fell.

  In mid stumble I reached out reflexively with my right hand and tried to grab the banister, but succeeded only in banging my fingers on the underside of it. Having kept myself so busy with books, existential thinking, and chores, I had nearly forgotten how badly I was still injured. The banister reminded me in a not so gentle manner.

  I managed to keep myself from falling, somehow, but the pain in my fingers made me throw out a few choice words that I was fairly certain my mother would not have approved of, even if they were directed at Katelyn.

  When I made it to the bottom of the stairs, (walking much more carefully on the lower half while cradling my throbbing hand) I had lost most of my appetite and decided that something simple would suffice for a mea
l.

  I didn’t want to go the Ramen noodle route for supper again, so I kept feeling along until I found something truly delightful; a box of Twinkies. I sat on my chair and ate the entire box.

  I learned a valuable lesson shortly after eating the entire box. If you eat twelve Twinkies on a mostly empty belly, it will make you very, very ill. I needed to vomit. My first thought was to head to the washer, but I had not removed my clothes from it yet, and in my addled state, I felt that it would be nearly sinful to puke on the laundry I had just washed.

  My second thought was my ‘Poopin Bucket’, as I had affectionately taken to calling it. I rushed over to the bucket and bent over it. As I removed the towel I thought the moment might be passing and I would not need to vomit after all.

  A physical force of stench punched me right in the nose as I yanked the towel off the bucket, knocking my head backwards and dispelling any myth I may have been trying to conceive about not needing to vomit. I lost all twelve Twinkies and some remnants of Pop Tarts as well.

  Feeling a bit weak and shaky, I covered my bucket and went to the dryer to get a jar of water, (the one near my chair was empty and I did not have enough ambition in me at that point to refill it.)

  I drank about half of it. My throat was still raw from the acid that had just passed through it, and my teeth felt fuzzy. I began daydreaming about my toothbrush that was locked just out of reach, beyond the infamous door, out in the real world.

  I was still feeling disoriented and queasy, and worse, I could feel the loneliness starting its oppressive crush on my emotions again.

  Glancing up, I could see that the light was beginning to shift hues again, reddening slightly with an orange tint, signifying the end of another day, and I still needed to get my bed set up for the night, and throw my clothes in the drier.

  The chores of laundry and bed setting were rapidly losing the appeal that they’d had during the first couple days of my incarceration, but I knew instinctively that I needed the chores to keep my sanity. I intuited that if I gave in to lethargy, it would be a slippery slope that would slide me straight into immobilized depression, and I would end up dying down there.