Seeing but not Seeing the Shadow

TW: This story contains references to abortion

“Roll your head to your right ear. Hold it. Now slowly, roll it to the left, allowing it to stay longer in the places where it aches. Those are the places that you need to work on.”

Keeping her eyes closed, Nadia let gravity pull her slowly to the other side. She felt a twinge at the back of her neck. Without waiting for the teacher to invite it, she rolled her head from her left shoulder around the back, taking satisfaction in the partial release of her vertebrae in the long part of her neck.

“Now, if you feel up for it, roll your head back.”

She was rolling her head around slowly, enjoying the release. She was less tense than she had anticipated; after all, so much had happened in the past week. It was the first time she’d been able to make it to yoga, what with the unexpected procedure and the invitation scheduled the following day to visit the police department. To give her testimony against the man she loved. It was like everything had come crashing down on her all at once. Victoria had stopped by with pizza, and though Nadia insisted even to herself that she didn’t need it, she deeply appreciated. She needed one full day to recover by lounging on the sofa, randomly bursting into tears, but then she was back on her feet, planning the flagship summit event she was responsible for in her European affairs consultancy. The feeling that she had no one to depend on was strong in her, particularly after recent events.

“Put your hands on your shoulders and roll them out.”

Oh sure, friends helped her out. Victoria had gone with her to the procedure. Elena brought lunch one day and sat with her, then after an hour of talking gingerly suggested cracking open a bottle of wine.

“Now change directions.”

Nadia felt her stomach pull upwards, but it wasn’t as painful as she’d feared. She let her shoulders unclench. Either her physique was stronger than she’d appreciated, or it was a very clean procedure. The female doctor was very precise. The only time Nadia felt pain was when the needle for the anesthesia went in. She felt it in her muscles, and then breathed out to relax.

“Raise your hands above your head. Then breathe out, bring your hands in front of your chest in prayer position.”

As for the male nurse, she couldn’t believe how gentle he had been. He narrated everything that was happening while the female doctor worked. Nadia had the crazy thought that a man who knows his way around a uterus would be a good man to have as a boyfriend. What a how-we-met story that would have been.

“Let’s open with the sound of the universe. Inhale…Ommmm….”

A smile twitched across Nadia’s face the second before she joined in. With her eyelids shut, she let the “omm” massage the upper inside of her mouth. Of course it felt good, it was the only way to massage the lower part of her brain.

Just then, a person who had been in the room with the sitting yogis the whole time took a step forward. And then another step, and another. He walked up to a few paces behind Nadia’s left shoulder and stopped there, his arms relaxed at his side. Just standing there, a darker black outline over the black world of her inner eyelids. Nadia could feel that it was a man, a black shadow of a man, who was there but not really there.

Her heart skipped a beat. She kept her composure as the teacher encouraged the class to lean to the right and stretch the left side of the body, then to the opposite side to stretch the left. She had been practicing yoga for many years and while they were on the floor at least, she could do most of them with her eyes shut.

The unseen yet visible figure hovering just behind her left shoulder disturbed her. While the class did a twist to look over the left side, she let her eyes open just a peep. Just as she had expected, there was no one there, but when she shut them again, there he was, clear as a raincloud on the blackest of nights.

“Now let’s do some cat-cows.”

Nadia got on her knees and pulled her head up to the sky, arching her back. Then she put one foot in front of a bent knee and lunged forward, bringing her arms to the sky. The figure was there the whole time. He wasn’t watching her. She couldn’t make out what he was doing there.

She tried to distract herself, to look at her fellow students. Her eyes fell on Jamie. His forehead was perspiring slightly and a long lock of hair had fallen across his eye. When she looked at him, he looked at her, and her eyes quickly darted back to her own image. She took the chance to admire her body: her breasts propped up in a lavender sports bra, her hair in a ponytail, her legs firm and standing proud.

“Now bend over and let your arms swing.”

She peered through her left armpit. There was no one there, other than her classmates who were also swinging upside down. She closed her eyes, and there he was again. It felt like he maintained the same distance from her regardless of where she was on the mat.

Who are you?, she asked, but only a deep silence came back.

The teacher led the class through a gentle transition to a standing position. Once her head was above her heart again, Nadia scanned the room through the mirror. She made eye contact with a few of the other yogis who were doing the same. Her eyes met Jana’s, a girl she would classify as a yoga friend. They had done yoga in the same studio for years and their friendship, if it could be called that, started with Jana gently approaching Nadia to talk about her Lululemon outfit. Nadia found the purpose of the conversation odd, but she later realized that Nadia was just an introvert. Nadia gave her a small smile but Jana continued to look at her with an unchanged expression.

Rude, thought Nadia, then closed her eyes. The figure in black was there again, a few paces behind her and to the left. He was deeply silent. She needed to work out who it was, if it was, and she could feel herself becoming paranoid. She opened her eyes and again scanned the room of vaguely familiar faces, avoiding eye contact with no one but Jamie. He hadn’t texted her back after she’d spent the afternoon with him, eating pizza on his bed and making love on his floor mattress like they were back in college. He kept his eyes open the whole time, but his gaze was distant.

“Try to catch the monkey mind… It’s normal for the mind to wander, but if you catch yourself thinking about your roommates, or what you’re making for dinner later, or the thing your boss said, just bring your focus back to the mat, recenter yourself and stay present. Inhale, shut your eyes, exhale, and stand with your palms facing the mirror. Mountain pose.”

Nadia followed the teacher’s instructions. Her hands were open, facing the mirror, and the shadowy figure was a few paces behind and to the left of her. Not even her monkey mind could shake him. She wanted to know who he was and why he was there. She knew he was male and that he was non-threatening. But who could he be? Once, years ago when she’d stayed in a shady hotel in Moscow, she woke up, but not fully, to a similar figure sitting on her chest and pushing down on her throat. She was awake and yet she was dreaming. She knew the figure that was sitting on her chest was nothing more than a remnant of a dream, a gatekeeper, maybe, between two worlds. With her eyes open, she beat the side of the bed lightly with her fists. Still the shadowy figure continued to sit on her and push down on her throat until she gave up resisting and gave into the temptation to let him overpower her. Just as she was willing to go back to sleep, it was gone and she was wide awake.

Later she read about the sleep paralysis demon. Many people had reported experiencing it since the middle ages. Across different cultures and times the appearance of such a shadowy figure before awakening had been reported. Some people experienced it more than once. It wasn’t real enough to be able to be studied, but it couldn’t entirely be ignored, either. A figment of the imagination, but not quite.

Nadia was glad she had only had that menacing experience once. She was sure she was not experiencing it again, and it had nothing to do with the shadowy figure in the yoga studio being a non-menacing force. She, for one, was wide awake, and knew for a fact that she had woken up definitely eleven hours ago.

As the class progressed, she started to fear she wouldn’t have much longer with him, which meant she might never be able to figure out what he was. In fact, she knew it, because something deep inside of her shared that knowledge with her. As soon as she left the room, even when she stepped off the mat, she would lose sight of him forever. So until the end of the class, she tried to keep her eyes closed as much as possible. Even standing in tree pose, with one foot placed on the inside of her thigh, she tried unsuccessfully to balance with her eyes shut. She was so focused on getting another glimpse of him in her mind’s eye that when her foot slipped it landed on the floor too quickly, with a thud that caused her neighbours to open their eyes. She looked apologetically into the mirror, making quick eye contact with some of them, but not daring to even mouth a word. Suddenly her eyes fell on Jamie’s face, and the long brown lock falling over his eye. She adjusted her position on the mat while making eye contact with him. His face still didn’t flinch. She wondered what he felt, if he was heartless, if he didn’t care what she’d been through at all. There had been no communication since she’d shared something so vulnerable and no flicker of recognition now. It was very weird. She remembered how he kept his eyes on her when they made love. The memory that had once felt so reassuring now repulsed her.

“Turn around and lay back for the final resting pose, shavasana.”

With regret, Nadia lowered herself on her knees and turned around to bring her head to the front of the room. The shadowy figure was still there, immediately transported behind the mirror somewhere. Laying like that with him nearby, her body rebounding after the intense physical exercise, Nadia could feel her spirit lifting up and travelling somewhere above the mountains.

She was walking next to Jamie. The memory, if it was that, made complete sense. They had been hiking in Cappadocia just two months ago, picnicking and posing for pictures all over a gentle yellow terrain. They’d trekked through Love Valley, where ancient limestone pillars that could only be called penis-shaped grow out of the undulating ground. After climbing the moderate slope out of the valley, they had sat down to share a bottle of wine, some bread and cheese. While Jamie went to pee in the bushes, Nadia had looked out and saw the face of her grandfather, the war hero who had taught her chess, superimposed above the mountains like an out of place and highly personal Mount Rushmore.

It’s my grandfather.

The realization hit Nadia like a jolt of electricity. Her muscles in her hands and thighs twitched. The teacher was already encouraging them to sit up and prepare for the final om, but Nadia had only just realized who it was.

Why are you here?

He was quiet, still a shadow, still a few paces beyond her left shoulder even within the mirror world. His energy was neutral. As she sat up and turned around to face the mirror, he slowly walked away and disappeared into air.

Nadia put her hands in front of her chest.

“Ommmm….”

The teacher bowed, the students bowed, and Nadia still sat there, her hands in front of her, feeling her grandfather. She knew she was right about her instinct but she had no idea of proving it. What did it mean, anyway? She barely thought of him - he’d died when she was twelve. Yet he had framed a traumatic event and the end of a relationship.

Fellow yogis now walked past her, stamping loudly, no longer graceful with their movements. She held onto the image, now a saved file, of her grandfather, his face superimposed on the facade of the mountain two months ago while she was in a relationship, happy as she thought, with no understanding of what would come. The female doctor had confirmed that she was pregnant in Turkey. Then she saw and felt him today in the shadowy figure, who’d already walked away from her just as she realized who he was. She had no idea what to do with this information.

She only walked out of the room once it was empty of all the students. The teacher bowed to her. Nadia said “thank you” and it sounded way too loud in the mirrored and wooden room. Her voice echoed off the walls. She went to get a cup to drink from and approached the complimentary tea stand. Jana was standing there with her back to her. Nadia didn’t really feel like small talk, but she braced herself for the inevitable.

“Oh, hi! Nadia, right?”

“Yes, Jana, hello, how are you?”

“I’m fine, and you?”

“I’m great,” Nadia said, aware that she probably didn’t sound genuine. She stepped forward to fill your cup.

“I recently had eye surgery,” Jana started, and Nadia wondered where this was going, “it got better but now it’s worse again.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry, too, in case I see you but I don’t say hello. I can’t really recognize faces.”

“You can’t see people’s faces?”

“Like, I can see yours now cause we’re standing so close, but I couldn’t if you were further away. Does that make sense? Were you at the flow class?”

“Yeah,” Nadia answered, preemptively feeling guilty.

“Well then in that case, I should say I’m sorry if I saw you, but didn’t see you.” Jana’s nose crumpled as she laughed.

Nadia, feeling like she had just been given a key, didn’t know how to answer her.

“I’m going to go have a shower.”

“Okay, see you around then!” Jana took a final sip, then set her cup back down in the sink, then walked off. Nadia watched her go. Just as she disappeared around the corner, Jamie came out of the men’s dressing room. The long lock of hair was in place, falling over his eye.

“Nadia, hi.”

“Hi, Jamie.”

She didn’t come closer, but then, neither did he. She stood there, wondering. The long but easy trip to Cappadocia. How she’d cried in their cave hotel room. He’d been heartless then, but maybe he had always been that way and it had never upset her before. He wore her down. Then there was her grandfather. Love Valley. Her six missed calls. The pillow full of heated cherry pits on her belly. The flowers on her doorstep, wilted white roses.

Too little, too late.

And now her grandfather again, the shadowy figure.

Jamie watcher her without saying a word. Did he want something for her? Nadia turned around and, echoing him, climbed the stairs alone and in silence.

That night was the first time since it had all happened that she slept peacefully.