บท 5: The Shadow
Not long ago I had the most active sex life. I was at the height of my promiscuity. I could easily bed women of my fancy in a flash with wads of cash. I had no worries when it comes to giving satisfaction to my carnal needs. I was very fortunate to have an almost perfect sex life, though I had no permanent partner to speak of. It never gave me interest to marry, nor to have a common law wife, nor to have a live-in partner. Living alone is dying alone; that was what I intended to do. I was practically living alone, by myself, with no known family to speak of. To a degree I was contented and satisfied with my situation.
Then in one dream—in the course of one of those nights of sensually filled fantasies, when I was in the height of my carnal passion—he came barging in and turned my lustful night into a nightmare and wrecked the normal flow of my sex life into something that forced me to hate myself. He came torturing me in my most vulnerable, and played with my emotions. It completely turned my whole existence upside down.
Coming from one of the deepest corners of my wicked mind, he persistently came again and again every night. In one of those nights, when I was in the act of giving satisfaction to my earthly carnal craving, he came bursting in.
“Who are you?” I asked, bewildered. He was standing in front of me after seizing my shadow and held it captive. He inserted himself into it and made his every move independent from mine. The shadow had a life of its own.
“You know perfect well who I am,” the shadow said, smiling confidently. He talked as if I had known him for a long time. The show of his confidence was interpreted by me as too abrasive and made me disliked him at that very moment.
“No, I don’t,” I said, fully irritated by his rude entrance. Something was telling me that in fact I knew him. I could feel the penetration of his eyes on me and the pulling by a strong force on my flesh trying to zap it out from my bones. I felt a crawling under my skin that made my hairs stood.
“Concentrate the focus of your eyes on my face,” he said, with raised eyebrows signaling impatience to the fact that I was clueless. “You’ll soon remember me. I have no doubt about it.” He was making fun of me. I didn’t have time with this clown but I hadn’t had any idea how to get rid of him.
“Whoever you are I don’t know you, so stop fooling around and leave me alone,” I answered, with indignation. This unnecessary interruption was getting into my nerves. The longer time I spent talking to him, the more agitated I became. A booming laughter ensued. He was clearly poking fun at what I just said.
“You know me, you just don’t want to admit it,” he said. He was having some frustration as shown by the contours on face. “I can feel it you wanted me out of here because I interrupted your sexual perversion. You’re only reinforcing my belief of you of what you really had become.”
“Huh . . . you don’t know a thing about me, so stop pretending that you do. Whoever or wherever you get your information about me it doesn’t interest me. I pity you and your shameful prying on my personal life. You accused me of perversion, but it was your intrusion that is what I considered a perversion.” His mention of my most hidden secret stunned me. How did he know? I tried to make a fast recall if I had ever hinted or mentioned to anyone about my fantasies, but my brain came empty.
He clicked his tongue several times and said mockingly, “I can tell it, you’re shocked that I know something about you that was tightly hidden. It might help to convince you that we really know each other. And to further help your memory . . .” He went near a wall dancing his way towards it mimicking a male ballet dancer, and went to detach a small rectangular mirror attached to it. He came closer to me, and placed the mirror in front of my face for quite some time.
The face was not mine—it was his!
“You’re really a clown,” I said as I attempted to make an amused face. “You really think you can convince me with your magic? Don’t waste your time and mine any longer. Your comic presentation can’t even tick a rib.” I was having great doubts on what I was saying. I couldn’t even accept if there was any truth behind those words that I had just spewed.
Then came the outburst I was not expecting. “Don’t play dumb on me!” he shouted. “You know damn well that that face is yours!” I was
taken aback by the change in his behavior. The clown in front of me had changed his mask overnight: from a sheep into a fox. It gave me an insight as to who he really was. It was my behavior that was manifesting. His behavior was similar to mine but without the antics. That kind of behavior I had outgrown, completely forgotten, and buried. As my age advanced, I simmered down and had forgotten when I was last triggered.
“Whatever you say makes no difference to me. I am not the one on the mirror; and I don’t know you. Have never seen your face before in my whole life,” I said, matter of fact.
“Perhaps another help will refresh your memory,” he said, while lifting his chin and rhythmically twisting it from side to side like someone listening to a slow movement of a sonata. I was intently looking at his face and in a wink of an eye his face dramatically changed into a face I was quite familiar with. I was looking at my face!
“Noo,” I said softly and covered my eyes with my hands to shield it from the devil’s work. He pulled my hands away from my face and replaced it with the mirror he was holding. This time I was staring at the face of a young man. I heard him say the words before my dream snapped out.
“And that was a younger you.” I woke up perspiring. I was not able to move. I sat on top of the bed breathing heavily.
Since then my shadow had been persistently inserting himself into my dreams, and forcing the narrative inside those dreams into a nightmare.
At first, it was just an irritation but soon it became troubling. The moment I was on the verge, he would show his eerie and most dreadful appearance with a devilish grin one could only imagine. He would jeer and laugh to intimidate me in the furtherance of his goal of distraction. It was the success of his endeavor that gave me much disappointment and the feel of extreme misery. In his most cruel act, he would tease me about the deficiencies of my manhood followed by his gleeful assurance that it would soon fail me.
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