I saw my shadow today. I ran inside and hid in a closet until she had passed.
Trapped as I was within my flesh, I knew she would dog me all the days of my
life with a mean-spirited perspicacity that enabled her to judge. A fraction of
light beamed under the closet door but my shadow stayed away. I wanted my flesh
to melt so I could stop running, but then who would I be without a shadow?

I asked the groundhog for information because he always sees his shadow and
sticks around anyway. He didn't know much but he did tell me that when he sees
his shadow, the winter is over. He advised me to join my shadow, play with her
and enjoy the summer. I thought about it for a few minutes and called Michael
Jackson who, I believed, hid in closets to avoid his famous shadow. But it was
too late to get an answer as his shadow had already erased him.

I ventured outside to see how it felt to stay quiet within my shadow. She dared
to mock my every move, and followed me north, south, east and west. So, when the
rains came, my shadow stayed away and I, a rain angel without her trickster, lay
on the ground and watched clouds dart like ninjas between lightning strikes.
When the sun slid out from its cumulus loft, my shadow emerged as well. I ran
inside and now peer at her from inside my concrete house -- waiting for the
rain.

- - - -

Kaye Linden has completed her MFA in fiction at the Northwest Institute of
Literary Arts on Whidbey Island. She has just finished a collection of forty
Australian tales set in the urban sanctuary of Ma's Place. Kaye is the editor of
the Bacopa Literary Review, an annual print journal and an active member of
Pamelyn Casto's online critique group.

Kaye's short stories have appeared in: The Camel Saloon, The Soundings Review,
The Bacopa Literary Review, The Raven Chronicles, Expressions, Breves No Tan
Breves, Whispers from the Unseen (Forum for Writing in the Arts) and November's
issue of Danse Macabre.

Kaye believes that stories return us to our roots and offer solace in a
difficult world.