Afraid of Your Own Shadow



When we are young, we’re all afraid of the dark. We can’t see what is there, so there could be all kinds of terrible things that could be lurking in the abyssal blackness that we can’t identify. We would cower and tremble under our blankets in fear of whatever could’ve been watching us, its stomach growling, its gaping maw hanging open, its tongue dripping with saliva, simply waiting to eat us.

Maybe we weren’t wrong at all, but maybe what we fear is always with us. Maybe when someone mentions being “afraid of one’s own shadow”, we truly do have something to fear.

Shadows are with us from birth. In fact, everyone is born with a shadow. Did you ever think that objects only have shadows because the darkness that follows us everywhere resides beside such things? We’ve accepted shadows as a normal part of life. Light falls upon something and casts a shadow, correct? At least that’s what we believe. What if when we are born, we are all followed by an infinite darkness? Consider that in different light, the shadow shrinks or grows. What if this darkness we carry with us is the cause of the shadows cast by these objects?

Sometimes you’ll notice something about a shadow seems just a little off. What if this shadow is a demon? What if all shadows are demons that we are born to carry?

Maybe we don’t age so much as… When in the darkness that draws us into our restful sleep, the shadow consumes our room and envelops us, and takes a little sip of our life’s essence night by night, until soon, nothing is left. We don’t age. The demon we are born with consumes our life and leaves us as a dry and empty husk.

So tell me, now. Do you sleep with the lights on? Are you afraid of your own shadow?