LUZ
Some people have a bad relationship with their reflection. I don't always like what she shows me but we generally get along. If there's an issue, I can change my clothes or do some makeup magic. Yeah, we have a pretty solid relationship. The one I can't stand is my shadow.
Something about the stark way she only lets me see my edges is an assault on my ego. Every morning on my walk to work, the sun is behind me and I can see her there ahead of me. She whispers all my worst fears to me. Taunting me for my legs, my hands, my face. On and on she torments me with all the things I know I can't change. I stand a bit straighter but better posture doesn't matter to her. And of course the sun is behind me on the way home from the lab. Every morning and afternoon I have to run from her sneers.
I can tell myself logically that I'm hot and none of my partners care about my bones. Normally it's easy to ignore but her gaze from the floor or the walls slips right past my defenses. I've started replacing all the lights in my house with LED strips, hoping the light diffusion could banish her from my place of rest. But there are some rooms where you just can't do that. She finds me in the kitchen, one of the rooms I feel sexiest in, and torments me for my manish arms or even my cooking if she's feeling extra vindictive. The bathroom is a safe haven for me and the mirror but stepping out into the hall, she is always waiting for me. Ready to strike at the self confidence I built up.
I've grown somewhat used to her black, oily barbs. But last winter, I was between relationships, my job was unusually stressful and I hadn't had a chance to fuck my stress away in months. I was starting to get sick of my shadow. Not in a beaten down way, not in a depressed way, but in an angry way. Every insult still lashed at me but I was frustrated at how repetitive she was. Everyday the same damn lines with slightly different wording, everyday prodding at the exact same insecurities. Always sneering at me with that exact same grin, everyday with that exact same voice dripping with condescension. The same outline, the same distortions, the same FUCKING SHADOW BITCH MOCKING ME!!!
I despised her. Something had to change. And one evening in February, I made it change.
Winter was usually a good season for escaping her under cloud cover, but it had been unseasonably bright and sunny. So not only did I see a lot more of my shadow, but my lighter jackets gave her a lot more things to torment me about. A long work week of her insults and I was at the edge of my patience. There she was, slathered against the wall outside the bathroom door as always.
"God your hips are pathetic. You call that a butt? I've seen a better butt on blocks of wood."
Something snapped inside me. I was not gonna take anymore of this abuse, not in my own home. I paced right up to the wall and glared right into my shadows inky void. "What the hell is your problem!" I shouted as I slammed my palm against the wall. Something gave. It wasn't the plaster, no my shadows hand had given way. Her oily palm deformed under the pressure of mine. I clenched my hand and our fingers interlaced.
I was just as surprised as her, but my anger smothered my surprise. I braced my left hand against the wall and slowly pulled at my shadow. Her face moved freely of mine to observe our connection point. Her inky body gained a new dimension as I pulled her free of the wall. I put my nose right up against hers and growled "Nobody asked you, bitch."
With a heave I pull my shadow completely free of the wall she had inhabited safely for years. She gasped in unrestrained fear. I used her shock to clutch her wrists behind her back while gripping her torso from behind. Her form was almost solid, an inky black void with only her edges having a bit of reflective white to hint at her newly gained third dimension. No eyes or teeth, her mouth only vaguely suggested by her lips moving as she whimpered and pleaded. Her body felt like smooth dough, pliable under my fingers but with a firmness underneath. She was pleasantly cool to the touch.
"One would think," I said dryly, "that you would be a touch more grateful after all the work I put into this body." I grabbed a handful of her large, squishy thigh as I hauled her into the bedroom. She squealed as I flung her onto the bed and I noticed that not only was she free of the wall, she was free of me as well. We were not connected anymore, not even at our feet. The strangeness of the situation began to overwhelm me, but then she turned her face up to look at me and my indignation rallied.
"I know what we used to look like. That body was awful and every day I think back on it, I feel sick. Those stick-like legs and hairy arms haunt me, so why must you add to my stress?" My voice raised in anger and desperation as the shadow girl slowly turned to sit upright on the bed. "We have come so far." I almost pleaded. "So why can't you just lay off occasionally?! You can't tell me you don't see the improvement. I'm staring at them right now!" I grabbed her sizable left breast for emphasis and the shadow girl gasped.
And I stopped. The air in my lungs stopped. My anger stopped. My hand did not stop.
NOIRE
Nothing in existence prepared me for this. For decades the world had been simple. Light and shadow, easily sketched out lines where I fit in. When she started to change who she was, I was changed as well and I resented the shifting lines. But now I'm here, in her hands, in a position I thought impossible. And what the hell was that noise I made?!?!
I try to still my fluttering core but her hand is still on my chest, slowly caressing its underside and the feeling is invading my thoughts. What on earth is happening to me? How did...how did I come to be here, staring up into her eyes like I so often do? Nothing about this is familiar, least of all the expression on her face. She looks confused but also... enflamed.
"What are you doing?" I whimper. I can scarcely recognize my own voice. Gone is my razor sharp sarcasm and in its place is a light, feathery pleading.
