The Shadow Out of Meadowvale

The figure followed him, shadowy cloaked and shadowing his footsteps. P walked the streets of his hometown for the first time in twenty years. He saw cracks in the sidewalk, but he expected more. The image of a rotten hometown as seen on television and movies wasn’t what he was seeing now. No potholes, no thunderclouds. The cracks in the sidewalk were present, but the cracks did not create spiderwebs of shattered concrete. The sidewalk was just old. P remembered the name calling and the laughing. The bullying in movies was similar, a facsimile of what P experienced in real life.

His walk led him to approach the Gadstone building, which was covered in mirrored glass. He looked in the reflection and saw a different world. The distorted Meadowvale fixed the cracks in the sidewalk, but P was just a smudged squiggle- or a squiggled smudge- in the perfect looking world. Another squiggle/smudge moved behind him. P turned to look but saw nothing.

Walking further toward his old home, he passed a park with a playground. It looked as though the old equipment was still there and had not been taken care of for some years. Seeing the arena of his youth, his thoughts returned to the name calling. What upset him most is  the lack of understanding. they could just read up on his condition, or even just listen to what he had to say for himself. Then they would see him for who he really was. In his thoughts, he sometimes called those people “low minded.” The hot feelings of revenge could never quell the icy shame at that desperate resort to what was merely a different way of saying,“I’m rubber, and you’re glue.”

Life had a funny way of not caring what happened where and of getting the memories all mixed up. It was up to P to separate the happy playground memories from the bad playground memories. P dared not to allow name calling to cross contaminate the good memories. He remembered trading cards and one of the few games of dodgeball that he performed well in, being the last member of his team and claiming victory against the last two opponents.

One game they played involved one kid who would throw a ball in the air and announce the points earned for catching it. The ball hitting the ground would erase the points unless the thrower specified otherwise. The thrower could also add rules such as calling the throw a ‘pick up’, meaning that points would not be lost when the ball hits the ground. P’s friend, Chandler threw the ball and called out, “One hundred points, pick up, for P only.” P felt good to get any points, because he could not catch anything. Then Lucy mixed it up with another rule “This one is bust,” (a trick of the thrower-whoever accidentally caught the ball would lose all their points)”-pick up, for P.” P had sadly picked up the ball and forfeited his one hundred points as the price to remain in the game with everyone. He thought about his decision; he could have refused to pick up the ball from the ground and left. The integrity of the game rules would be challenged. To pick up the ball and not lose any points was to establish that the rules could be disregarded at the whim of any person. If he had left, P would not be breaking any rules, and he could have his points. But P did not leave. It was like that movie- or was it a book or a television show? The only moving win was moving away. It might have been a different phrase, but the memories were sucking away P’s ability to care about it. It was hard to care about anything.

P heard the swing set creak. He turned to look, and a swing was moving. In the distance the bottom branches of two trees were shaking as if someone had swiftly retreated into their shade. Mystery swings and shaded forest hideaways were only in books. They could also be in movies, or television or video games. They could also be in board games P figured. Mystery swings and shaded forest hideaways were only in fiction. That was a better, more succinct way to say that. To think that. P’s thoughts were starting to move in a certain way. The tone or current forecasted a river of stress. He was stressed out in his hometown as someone followed him, hounded him. Except he was not because mystery swings and shaded forest hideaways were only in fiction, so nobody was following him.

…

But supposing someone was following him… Why would they follow him? What would they say? The figure followed him, shadow cloaked, and shadowing his footsteps.

P’s thoughts dwelt on what a mysterious, fictional figure might say to him. Unfortunately, under these circumstances, P could not come to any good conclusions. He thought of the words buried deep within him and a very deep truth/secret.

The very bitterest truth lay down deep in his heart; he was supposed to be safe from the name calling at home, but he was not.

The figure followed him, shadow cloaked, and shadowing his footsteps. P chanced to think he saw the figure in another reflection but did not bother to look anymore. He was used to staring by now. He was not normal. His thoughts dragged him deep into the past. He heard his stepfather’s voice, “I can tell, he’s gonna’ be like this his whole life.”

He never got over that phrase. Like what? LIKE WHAT?! What was he going to be like his whole life? Those words had forced him to take the time to make a mental checklist of his faults. He did get in trouble for things but no more than any of his peers. Hindsight taught him that these words were a turning point, not because of what his stepfather had said, but because P had chose to dwell on what he needed to fix about himself. His stepfather would never recognize that he should have dwelt on what P could do rather than what he could not do. His stepfather was low-minded.

His thoughts turned again to the playground. The memories were entangled. Life would not untangle them. Perhaps it was not P’s job to untangle them.

The figure followed him, shadow cloaked, and shadowing his footsteps. P approached the figure and cried out.

“Hello there!”

The shadow cloaked figure had always been seen at a distance. For the same reason that P could not catch, P had trouble telling distance. His malevolent stalker was a child no older than 12. The cloak was a hoodie that was too big for him, perhaps belonging to a parent or older sibling. “Could you tell me were the-”

“Hey, nice shirt. You look familiar,” said the mystery figure with the high-pitched, prepubescent voice of a boy. P looked down at what he was wearing. He had forgotten that he had put on a shirt with his high school mascot on it, front and center.

“I’ve got family-” P started to explain.

“Your picture is on the inside of some of the books I have read! My mom reads them too.”

“Yes, I am P----,” he replied, giving his first and last name.

“Are you gonna’ write anymore? Mom and I can’t wait for the next book? What’s it gonna’ be about?”

“Right now, I’m picking up a lot of inspiration from this place. I think the main character will have to face a person who is the physical manifestation of his past troubles. Of course, that only happens in fiction, but it forces the character and the reader to think about such things.”

“Whoa! Mom’ll love that! Good luck with the book Mister! We’ll both be on the lookout for it!”

P continued his walk about town. He visited his mom in the house he grew up in, and he prepared to leave. He looked back, and Meadowvale was a quaint small town. Many sorts of people could be born here and grow up here. P tangled up all his memories and didn’t bother to untangle them. He chose to live with the chaos. The chaos made for some good stories.