The Shadow Man
“The Red Wheelbarrow”
“so much depends
upon”
“a red wheel
barrow”
“glazed with rain
water”
“beside the white
chickens”
~ William Carlos Williams, The Collected Poems.
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Shirley blinked at the wall. She was not pleased with the colour of it, not at all. Why had the painter decided to place dollops of a colour that made Shirley feel like she was staring at sour cream. She had told the so called “greatest artist of the modern times” to paint the wall with a bright colour. But now here she stood still trying to maybe change the colour of the wall with her mind— at least maybe to a more fun colour like red.
Her alarm beeped snapping her mind back to reality. Ah, she forgot she had to meet up with her dear friend at the movies in about an hour. She dashed toward the kitchen, and looked for her car keys.
The sound of the doorbell rang. She raised her eyebrow. Her friend would usually call before they’d show up at her door. She hurried toward it, and opened the door. A stranger dressed in a bright red coat smiled at her. He bowed his head, and asked, “Is your home available for someone to stay…only for part of the season..not the whole year.’’ It took her a while to register what he was finding out from her. She smiled at the gentleman, & told him to come in.
He stepped into her home, and clasped his hands. His face twisted around like an owl’s. He stared at Shirley as his face started to turn upside down. Shirley froze for a brief second as she screamed. Then she made a beeline past the guest, and bolted toward the kitchen.
She opened one of the drawers and pulled out one of her sharpest knives. The stranger chuckled. “Shirley— that will not stop me- you should know that by now. Oh, you humans can be so silly most of the time.”
Shirley waved the knife frantically back and forth at the stranger. She felt sweat begin to flow like a small stream across her forehead, along the bridge of her nose.
The guest croaked & after that a giant sticky tongue emerged from his mouth. It landed on Shirley’s face. The stranger licked the sweat off her face and said, “I have been watching you. Trying to study you, a human with not much to her name. You live a life that is so different from mine. In a place that you still are trying to fix, or make better. For me I come from a long line of a wealthy platinum group. We’re provided with a fine place that ends up becoming our home. But even with all that, I still crave much more. I guess after seeing how you live, I had to understand you somehow. Soon after getting to observe you daily, I decided it was time to pay you a visit. To speed things along, and make it easier for us both, I think it shall be best if I helped make the final decision for you.”
With that being final remark, the being started to expand & while that happened its jaws became much sharper, and longer, too. It growled and charged toward Shirley.
The walls that Shirley had been staring at about an hour ago were no longer splattered in a plain looking sour cream colour. Her guest had paid her a quick visit. The stranger bowed his head, and not only took off with part of Shirley in his gut, but also still had her best knife lodged between his lower scaly back, and feathery tail.
#TheShadowMan. (c) 9.29.2022