Shadow Land

    When I pulled the box from the closet, I did so with the trepidation of a frightening story I had as yet to know the ending of. The clothes the box contained belonged to Emeril, a neighbor boy. His mother had asked if my son could use them. My son is the same age as Emeril was when he disappeared. 

    “You might as well have them if they will be of any use to you. When he comes home he will certainly have grown out of them. Please take them if you can use them. I’ll just have to throw them out or give them to some clothing bank.”

    Emeril had disappeared nearly three years ago. Our community spent weeks searching for him, but to no avail. The police although they continue to maintain they are actively involved in the search, have disappeared into the memory of a past no one dares to recall. Emeril was thirteen, and had disappeared on his way home from school.

    The story is not unfamiliar; a boy in Minnesota, a girl in Indiana, never found, but the notion of them never returning, not contemplated. It is impossible to give up, forget, when the reminders of them remain. I suspect a reason for the sudden clearing of Emerils clothing is a way of letting go. As the days turn into weeks, months, and now years, the belief in his return is waning. The constant expectations that greet every dawn, the disappointment that closes out the night, take a toll on hope.

    I took the box of clothes. I didn’t consider whether I could use them, or whether my son would find them comfortable enough to wear, but I took them because she needed them gone. Much like death, the remains of death, clothing, hockey sticks, painted rocks, clay ashtrays, all reminders of a time, a life, that although no longer physically present, remains. 

    I opened the box and began to survey the contents. The shoes, jeans, sweaters, all the appropriate size for my son, but imbedded with the presence of Emeril. I am not sure that my son should be burdened with his presence. He was young enough at the time Emeril disappeared to not understand all that had happened, the implications of what had happened. The fact that Emeril was no longer the boy next door who was full of questions. 

    The restrictive rules that infiltrated the neighborhood were no doubt perceived to be a punishment to the children, but was the logical response of parents who were relieved it was not their child, that had disappeared. All the terrible images that jump into your mind you can imagine being perpetrated on your own child and perhaps the over reaction to a situation can be explained, accepted, but not by those who find themselves prisoners, their freedoms scrutinized, their time alone with friends limited.  

    The price we pay to escape the affects of fear is too much, and not enough. It changes our perspective, turns up the heat on our presumptions, and becomes the filter by which we accept or reject our decisions. After Emeril disappeared we lived in a prison of our own making. Everyone became a potential victim or aggressor. Everyone was looked at with a skepticism not deserved, but having to support or defend. We all disappeared, a day at a time.

    Going through the box I found a shirt.  A summer, short sleeve, no collar, pocket in the front, alternating blue and white striped shirt. I remember him wearing that. He used to come over when I was working on the car and ask me questions about what I was doing. He was always asking questions. Wanted to know about trees, what kind of flowers were growing along the fence. He wanted to know what I did at work.  

    I guess it was because he didn’t have a father. He never said why, I never asked. His mother was a nice woman. She’d watch my son if we went out for our anniversary or somewhere it wasn’t appropriate to bring a child. She’d never take any money. She said me being kind to Emeril, tolerating his questions, was enough. 

    We never did find Emeril. Police believed he’d been abducted. There was no indication he’d have run away. We all hoped their analysis were true, he remained alive, and would be rescued one day. We searched the entire area, neighbors, police, dogs, but never found anything to lead us in a direction. It was as if he disappeared like smoke. 

    With each passing day however, finding him became less likely and hopes diminished. Soon his disappearance had become a bad memory that came as flash backs, and pushed aside, being to painful to dwell upon.

    I can see his face, him standing above me as I lay beneath the car, asking what I was doing. There was so much he wanted to know, and we are left with only a few mementos of him. A life reduced to the contents of a box that is a reminder of something to painful to keep. 

    I felt particularly affected by his disappearance, as I had a similar experience of my own when about his age. My friend Alicia and I walked home from school daily. She lived next door. On that day I had to remain after school, for what reason I no longer remember, so she walked home alone. 

    We were to avoid the park, told to walk around it as a precaution. We talked of our parents directives.  Their warnings however only increased the lure of the path that wandered through the trees, into the temptation of what we had in our imaginative minds named Shadow Land.

   We contented ourselves with stories of the creatures that lived amongst the trees, and couldn’t wait until we were older and would no longer be cautioned about exploring the evil that lucked in the darkness. We created pixeled characterizations of the evil that awaited those that dared trespass on their territory.

   Alicia I assumed had succumbed to the temptation of the shadowy path that day she walked alone. It had begun to rain that afternoon, and the trek through the park would have been considerably shorter. 

    I remember that night as clearly as I remember the night I was told Emeril had gone missing. The police asked questions of all the neighbors, seeking any information about Alicia’s whereabouts. The following day I watched as they carried a sky-blue jacket her mother had embroidered with yellow sun flowers towards Alicia’s home. It was the jacket she’d worn the previous day.

    The jacket had been found in the park along with a shoe that was also confirmed to belong to her. I never saw Alicia again, nor to my knowledge was she ever found. 

    When I grew older, I forced myself to walk that winding path through the shadows, past the rock outcropping where her jacket had been found. I felt a presence as I stopped and recalled her story of a tall bearded man, with steely black eyes, who lived behind the rocks in the hollow of a tree, and stole children so he’d have someone to talk to.

    I always wondered if that is not why she went into the park that afternoon, to tell stories to the man in the tree.