The Shadow

You cannot dismiss some people from your mind. Some just cannot be buried no matter how hard you try. They command presence. Their shadow lingers by your side years after they're gone. Their smile, a ghostly apparition at midnight, is like an inseparable companion. Don't get me wrong. I have tried. I have tried to dissipate the animation and energy that these people furnished my life with, but failed. I am not going to name them. That's no longer of consequence because they don't exist anymore. I also won't humanize them by narrating specific stories that link them to individual memories that might trigger emotions I have successfully placed in a grave behind the Kremlin Wall on Red Square. You get the image. I am not in contention with my self awareness. Nor am I emotionally suicidal today. I merely want to bring to your attention how people can still dominate your life after they have left you. They possess the power to influence your sub conscious, concealing you with a gentle facade. Perhaps you are analyzing me right now. But before you sit as a judge at my trial, I would encourage you to get to know me. I am one of those 'used to be' directed outward, marked by external realities kind of a personality who recently folded inwards with my organs invaginated. So as we all lose faith in humanity and its immense powers, I contend that I often wonder about this ballet of life. It is beautiful, with its intricate characters determined to show every movement, but what use is it? We surround ourselves with energies we can dance with, making no secret of our designs, merely to answer our immediate needs. And one day, unannounced, just like that, all our stock assets vaporize. We seek fossils to provide conformation of the evolutionary theory, all along clinging to someone or something on which our expectations are centered. What happens when we suddenly find ourselves standing alone, like a lone skier on the mountain? You must think I'm bizarre, wearing a crazy hat, and singing half baked ideas. But you and I both demand reform. We strive for an equality of distribution. So just entertain me and my theories of the natural world. Close your eyes and think about a person that's no longer in your life. Think about a specific instance or a day of sustained elation when you were in a state of altered consciousness. It's not the big things in life that march aggressively in our memories. It's the little things that excite the cognitive process of obtaining and storing knowledge. The walk back from college at night as we passed a graveyard; or the song he played for you at a party to make you smile; or the weekend you were like pieces of pasted paper without a care in the world.