Lycanthropia

The twin demons of insomnia and depression are inextricably linked, it seems, and my most recent bout of depression manifests itself in sleep patterns that defy logic: Two hours here, thirty minutes there, no rhyme or reason.

My shadow is unhappy with the arrangement, and this morning he simply refused to get out of bed. Instead, there was a slow s-c-rrr-itch — not unlike the sound of a long Velcro strip being slowly opened — as I arose from my fitful rest. For a moment it seemed my shadow would lose the contest of wills when, suddenly, with the pop! of a champagne cork, we separated. My shadow snoozed contentedly in the bed, and I floated like a leaky helium balloon toward the ceiling. It turns out physics is all wet: Our shadows, and not the effects of gravitation, anchor us to the earth.

At first the novelty of the thing entertained me. My back against the ceiling, I examined cobwebs in the corner and dust I missed on the blades of the ceiling fan. Everything had a different look and took on new meaning from the perspective of up. I contemplated crab-walking my way to the door and exiting into the blue day, imagining I might drift past the ozone layer through the mesopause and thermosphere into outer space, but it occurred to me that I might be trapped, instead, in the stratosphere and linger there in an absurd Limbo — depressed and sleepless, cold and hungry besides.

My shadow — the insufferable beast — arose about noon, checked his email, tinkered with a stuffed doll, made a couple of phone calls, took a shower, and settled in for a classic radio program — the story of Lamont Cranston, millionaire man about town, and his alter ego. Later he made a salad and ate it on the front porch, taunting the late-afternoon sun. Meanwhile, I was in a jam. All I could do was crabwalk around the house on the ceiling, cursing my shadow, bemoaning my loveless fate, and dusting things.

This ended when the more daring of my cats leapt from the kitchen counter to the top of the refrigerator. Now, he knew better and deserved punishment, so I felt no remorse lifting him from his perch and forcibly pulling his shadow from his paws. It came away with four little chich-es, and the four shadow limbs attached easily to my own. The cat shadow brought me quickly to earth, but it was light and daring and accentuated by its lithe sleekness my lumpy human awkardness. I felt shy and silly attached to it, and when my shadow saw it he guffawed with laughter.

“A cat shadow?” he chided. “Is that the best you can do? Why not the shadow of a refrigerator or the shadow of a blade of grass?”

“Make one more smart-aleck comment and I’ll scratch out your eyes,” I warned him. “What’s wrong with you anyway?”

My shadow kicked at the shadow of a smooth rock. “I’m tired of being bound to you,” he answered. “You get me into way too much trouble. Cost me too much heartache. And, man, you don’t sleep enough to keep the shadow of a bird alive. I want a new deal.”

“Deal?” I said. “What deal?”

“Shorter hours, for one thing,” my shadow insisted. “Longer sleeps. I need to spend less time talking and more time listening, which means you need to do the same. By damn, stop beating us to death. Time does enough damage to us without your help. Stop trying to invent a better world and make one instead.”

“Have any more aphorisms?” I asked with a sneer.

The cat passed by, shadowless, and hissed at me. I wondered briefly how he’d managed to come down from the ceiling when I noticed his extended claws: Life is better for those who adapt to every change and cling to reality no matter what comes their way. Minutes later I found myself making castles of clouds and wondering what color the moon would be when it rose in the early spring sky.

“You’re already dreaming,” my shadow said. “If you’d sleep more at night you’d do less of that during the day. Listen, if you want to be an ass about this, you can wander around with the shadow of a cat for the rest of your life. And you can be sure the wags will have a go at that when they lay you to rest. But the choice is yours.” He strummed the shadow of a guitar I have yet to find though I’ve scoured the house from top to bottom. “It’s hard enough being your shadow without having to make up your mind.”

“Don’t act like such a tough guy,” I replied. “Or I’ll bring out the flashlight. Here’s the deal: I’ll start sleeping more if you’ll stop foreshortening the future and lengthening the past. I’ve spent too much time there lately. I can’t stay there forever.”

“Fair enough,” my shadow agreed. “Give me your foot.”

He pulled loose the shadowy cat’s paw from my foot and stuck his own in its place. I grabbed the cat’s shadow by the tail and held it while we made the transfer. Then my shadow and I tracked down the shadowless cat and reattached him to the earth. He shook himself, licked his fur and bounded away.

It’s an uneasy truce, to say the least. Even as I’m typing this my shadow is looking longingly at the bed, wondering when he’ll get six uninterrupted hours. And he’s still living in better days, dragging me back with him, kicking and screaming.

But my feet are anchored to the earth, and that’s something. Sooner or later time numbs even the shadows of the past. I’ve seen it happen again and again.

An uneasy truce is better than none. Who better knows what evil lurks in my heart? And who can better help me purge it?

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