Atanase

When I was a boy, Mother told me, “All mirrors reveal beauty and shadow. Like the god Narcissus, fools focus only on the former and ignore the latter.”

“Why would anyone want to look at the darkness, Mother?” I was vain and self-obsessed, even at a young age. “The mirror reveals my beauty—the most important thing. I don’t understand.”

“One day, Atanase,” she said, “you will.”

Years later, as a young man, I gazed into the mirror and was pleased to find the shadows exposed no wrinkles on my face. I turned my head to admire my profile and froze.

A flash of white appeared amongst the fine black hairs in my prided widow’s peak.

“A gray hair! My youth fades before my eyes! How can this be?”

Then I remembered Father was a barber; he’d left me the one thing he treasured most as he lay on his deathbed.

“The barber shears,” I said. “I’ll sever this white omen with Father’s barber shears!”

In no time, I had this snowy invader trimmed from the forest of black on my head. With the work completed, I was again unmarred—the picture of a handsome young man.

Two days later, Mother’s prophetic words came back to prove me a fool.

The white hair had returned. It mocked me, looking twice the size in the mirror this time! I shrank from the terrible sight of it.

“Death hounds me—is there no way to barter with it for more time?”

It was then I spied several paper stacks piled near my desk in one dusty corner of my flat. Every pile represented a manuscript I’d toiled over in the misguided belief I’d succeed at publishing my strange tales of imagination. Each stack was a monument to failure—every one capped by a loathsome, pink rejection slip.

That infuriating, white hair added insult to a life of failure and anonymity, and I fell into a deep pool of self-pity.

“Enough.”

The sound of my voice startled me. Despair clung to the word like a cobweb under a damp cellar doorway.

What did I have to show for my sorry existence? A single glimpse at my exhausted bank account, barren kitchen cupboards, the vacant pages of my social calendar, was sufficient evidence of my inadequacies. Failure was in no short supply; the steadily growing collection of pink slips was the final nail in my coffin.

Thoroughly dejected, I tugged at the white hair, feeling an irresistible urge to travel to the seaside and make an end to my misery.

Pulling on my threadbare overcoat, I bid a last farewell to my flat and the few possessions I owned.

I made my way across town under a bright sun that mocked me with its brilliance, my shadow the only witness to my solitary death march.

Over time, an old deserted lighthouse appeared like a giant’s finger, pointing at the sky.

How is it I’ve never seen it here before? I thought. No matter. I’ll climb the steps to the circular gallery at the top, then I’ll leap off the railing—an Icarus without wings.

The spiral stairway winding upwards was dark; the lighthouse chamber’s cold air leached the warmth from my bones. I paused, allowing my eyes to adjust to the gloom, then placed my foot on the first iron stair.

The damp air stirred; I heard scrabbling sounds, and my pulse quickened.

“It’s only a starling, startled by the invasion of its home,” I said aloud. “Fear not, little friend. Soon, you will be spared of my presence.”

I began the ascent, my shadow long since swallowed by the murky gloom. The only sound in the lighthouse was my boots as they clanked upon the iron stairs.

At roughly the halfway mark of the journey, I sensed the brick wall surrounding me narrowing like the gullet of a snake. When whispering sounds echoed off the walls, I stopped.

“Who goes there?”

My voice echoed inside the chamber, and the strange sound abruptly ceased. Thinking this a sign I should abandon my quest, I nearly lost my nerve.

But I swallowed my fear and resumed the climb that seemed unending.

After a time, a sliver of light pierced the darkness and a bent steel door sagging on rusted hinges appeared before me. To my surprise, the ancient door opened with the slightest push.

With the sun’s full force blinding me, I stumbled into the light and saw my shadow dance across the heavy iron deck of the gallery.

“Shhhhhhhhhh.”

A silky, rustling sound hissing through the doorway I’d just passed through startled me. I would’ve thrown myself from the top of the lighthouse in fright, had not a gentle, unfamiliar voice called out.

“Atanase?”

Through blinded eyes, I saw a man leaning on the railing of the circular gallery.

“Thank you for answering my invitation.”

The man smiled and nodded at the door behind me as I stared dumbly at him.

“Our friend in the lighthouse is a patient creature. To a point. Let us attend to business.”

“Who are you?” I felt betrayed by his unexpected presence at this, my last hour. “What invitation? I have no business with you!”

He smiled again, and his face seemed familiar with his thick, closely shaved black beard and dark, piercing eyes. With his tall, barrel chest, the dark curls on his head, and a well-manicured black beard complimenting his ruddy face, I was certain I knew him.

“We have never met, Atanase. Our only kinship is that we’re both fatally romantic souls. Horribly vain ones at that. Both of us cursed with creative spirits lacking only a Muse’s touch for us to reach great heights. Your answer to my call shows me you despair of ever finding her. I discovered my Muse long ago. Now, I’m at the end of my journey.”

His eyes dropped to stare at my feet; a frown crossed his face.

I followed his gaze to my shadow, then looked to his feet and gasped.

“Startling, is it not?” said the man. He gestured to the spot where his shadow should lie, but did not. “You came here today, as I did long ago, seeking release. But this is the goddess’s domain and if you’re willing, you will fly rather than fall. Forfeiting one’s shadow to her is a small price to pay for success.”

“Success? Are you mad?” Confused, frightened by his missing shadow, I misunderstood him. “I’m the furthest thing from success!”

The stranger’s black beard dropped to his chest. He pulled something from his coat pocket and extended it.

“Before you pass judgment on my sanity, would you examine this? I, too, was a failure in my chosen field. A might-have-been. Here. Consider my work in this sketchbook. If you find madness there, then I’ll step aside as you leap from the lighthouse.”

Something in his voice moved me. With a quivering hand, I took the book and opened it.

My eyes grew wide with wonder as I turned the pages one by one, for I instantly recognized the forms sketched within representing the world’s most magnificently designed architectural structures—all signed by the greatest architect of our time!

“This is your work?”

I looked at the man whom I now recognized as the world-renowned visionary who’d created these glorious works.

“This is a trick.”

“I wish it was,” he said. His mournful voice filled me with such misery that I stopped turning the pages and looked in his sad, weary eyes.

“Well, this is my latest incarnation, anyway. I’ve lived long enough to be a brilliant surgeon in the early 1700s; ninety years on, I moved in famous circles as a celebrated painter in the age of Neoclassicism.”

The architect’s dark eyes misted as he spoke.

“Fast forward a century and a quarter, and I became a well-known journalist, covering the Great War firsthand. I moved with the times, Atanase; adopted other names, new professions, and drew inspiration from the Muse, who provided me with the creative gifts my vanity demanded.”

The man who claimed he’d lived for centuries paused. The sea breeze ruffled his black hair, and I sensed the long years in the empty smile on his face.

“Architecture,” he said, “is my final, greatest contribution to the world. The one I wish to be remembered for.”

I glanced at the exquisite drawings, wishing to disbelieve, yet sensing the truth of his words.

“How is this possible?”

“How can a man surrender his own shadow to a goddess?”

“I have no answer.”

“By making a bargain, Atanase,” he said.

The shadowless man turned his back to me and stared at the swells in the distance. His lonely form moved me to join him at the railing.

“But why?” I said as we watched seagulls sail over blue-green waves. “What’s in it for a goddess?”

For a moment, he said nothing. Then he chuckled.

“Who knows? The goddess appeared to me only once. Gods are fickle yet needful creatures who require sacrifices. Or, perhaps we provide them with amusement. Still, a bargain is a bargain. If only—”

He fell silent, leaving the rest unspoken.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You are famous. Rich beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. And you are—”

“Yes, Atanase.” He turned to face me, a resigned expression on his face. “I am immortal. But that is at an end.”

He reached up with both hands, parted the jet-black whiskers on his chin, and revealed a single white strand of hair buried deep within his beard. It was shockingly white—whiter than any sun-bleached bone in the desert.

My hand crept slowly to where my pale defect lay. The architect shook his head.

“By answering my invitation, your white worm is gone,” he said. “The goddess holds it now. She senses a bargain for the taking like a hunting dog senses the rabbit in the hedge. Beware, Atanase. Bargains come with conditions. And I have, after nearly three centuries, broken the terms of mine by confiding my story to you. The price is the full wrath of she who keeps the hideous creature in this lighthouse.”

“So you’ve lured me here to be the instrument of your destruction?” Even then, self-absorption consumed me. “What is my payment for this wretched job?”

His eyes widened.

“There is one thing I must do before the beast claims my soul as payment for my crime. I’m obligated to extend to you the same dark bargain offered to me those many years ago. That, Atanase, is why you are here.”

My pulse quickened—this was the answer to all my problems!

“And my shadow. How does it figure into the bargain?”

Suddenly, his expression changed; the blood drained from his face.

“One cannot live forever, it seems, without a cup-holder for the years.”

A chill ran through me.

“You mean—”

“The shadow is the cup that holds the centuries. The beast, starving in this lighthouse for centuries, thirsts to drink from it.”

I glanced nervously at my shadow. Numbness enveloped my hands like gloves filled with cold needles.

“What will it be, Atanase?” he said, seeming somehow smaller, frailer. “A leap from this lighthouse? Or fame and fortune forever? Come—surrender your shadow and take my place.”

I didn’t hesitate—my vanity, as always, was my master.

“I accept. I will take your place.”

With that, the lighthouse trembled beneath our feet. It swayed like an upside-down pendulum and I grabbed the railing to keep from falling.

Suddenly, the rusted door blew open; a hellish green luminescence, brighter than the sun, blazed forth from within the murky chamber.

“Shhhhhh!”

A fetid stench filled the air as a pair of massive, milky white tentacles reached through the doorway. They slithered over the metal deck—arms dotted with purple-ringed, sucker-like mouths filled with silver, needle-sharp teeth. The mouths gasped like fish suffocating on land.

As the hideous leviathan pulled half its bloated body through the lighthouse chamber doorway, I blindly reached out for my companion’s sleeve. If the monster’s intent was to drag its terrible, slippery form across the gallery and devour him, then shouldn’t I save the architect from his fate?

But the goddess demanded payment. The sound of a thousand thirsty mouths filled the air with loud, hurricane-force wails and I released him.

“Thank you, friend!” the architect shouted through the wind. He flashed me one last smile. “Your bargain is now sealed, but you won’t be alone! I leave you Clip, my wise companion and guide! Goodbye, Atanase!”

He pointed a finger at the metal deck. His shadow, absent for centuries, had returned. But the bellowing beast, and the shaking all around us, forced my eyes away.

Horrified, I watched as a massive, pearly white tentacle grabbed the architect by an ankle and knocked him onto his back. He didn’t struggle; didn’t resist as the monster dragged him over the deck and drew him towards the doorway.

It was only when the awful purple suckers sank their teeth through his clothes and into his flesh that he lost his nerve. I watched in horror as the goddess’s creature pulled him towards it, the architect’s eyes wide, mouth open in a silent scream. His once jet-black hair faded to white while the beast greedily sucked down the many years returned to him; the rusted doorway swallowed him and he was gone.

It was over. Soon, the complaining sounds of seagulls filled the silence. Rising on unsteady feet, I stumbled towards the doorway. There was no sign of the architect.

Then I remembered the deal I’d made in such an impulsive fashion and quickly searched the deck. My heart skipped a beat to find my shadow absent.

Gathering up my courage, I descended the iron stairwell, traveling in dark silence, with my bargain sealed. When I reached the last step at the bottom of the lighthouse, I found—

#

“Let me guess,” said a familiar voice. “A golden cage containing a wise old owl.”

Startled, I jerked the pen from my manuscript.

I turned to face Clip, who furrowed his feathery brow over his dark, brooding eyes.

“Ah, I see you’ve returned with supper,” I grunted.

Absent all afternoon, my watchful companion now sat perched at the open window. A small, gray mouse dangled limply from his sharp, white beak.

Clip ruffled his feathers, dropped his dinner, and bobbed his head. He glared at me with dark, accusing eyes.

“How can I eat,” Clip said, “when you put in writing what is your death sentence, Atanase?”

I laughed.

“How melodramatic! Storytelling is my profession. This one is for my eyes alone. A harmless literary exercise, friend Clip.”

The owl squawked angrily.

“You tweak the goddess’s nose, Atanase!” He hid his face under a wing and sobbed. “You write of your bargain for random eyes to chance upon? To tempt fate so invites your shadow’s return.”

Clip’s tear-filled voice shamed me. I bowed my head and stared at the floor, where I cast no shadow.

“I beg you. For your own sake, destroy this ill-advised memoir! Return to the fictions your fans clamor for—the tales that have catapulted you to success and fame. You frighten me, Atanase.”

“I frighten myself.” I surprised myself by the admission. “And I grow bored, Clip.”

The owl hooted loudly.

“No wonder! Unlike the architect,” he said, “who mastered many trades, you never strayed from your love of the pen. You’ve written under countless pseudonyms as the river of time flowed by. Lived a half-dozen decades without another wrinkle on your face, or gray hairs appearing on your vain, foolish head; found inspired ways to hide your secret.”

It was true. The goddess blessed me with a keen imagination and I’d invented ruses to hide my shadowless state. A feigned, unique sensitivity to light kept personal appearances at book signings to a minimum. My publishers conducted celebrity events under tightly controlled conditions in lowly lit environments. No one ever uncovered the truth about the man with no shadow.

“Atanase,” Clip said. “I sense your restlessness. Why not explore fresh territory? Venture into the other arts. Sculpture, paint. Or, if you must write, journalism. It entertained the old architect for a time. Why test the goddess? All you require is a new challenge. You are more than up to it.”

Clip appealed to my vanity, and I wavered. The goddess chose well when she created my vigilant companion. The last of my resistance gave way, and I surrendered.

“There’s a reason the gods named the owl the wisest of all creatures. As always, you are right, Clip.”

Moving to the window seat, manuscript in hand, I settled in next to the owl, who observed me with inquisitive, dark eyes.

“I grow weary of arguing this evening.” I said, stifling a yawn. “Here. Take this manuscript—shred it to pieces with your beak. Let me sleep upon the rest. I’m certain the goddess will guide me towards a fresh path.”

Clip ruffled his feathers and cocked his head.

“You will not regret completing the story? Will a new direction be enough for you, Atanase?”

I paused and considered the way ahead of me.

Was I better off for taking the architect’s place, losing my shadow and gaining everlasting life and success by striking a dark bargain with a goddess?

The years clouded the answer. Mirrors reveal the truth—bargains with goddesses are not as forthcoming when showing one where the light ends and the shadows begin.

But the hour was late, and I grew weary.

“Yes,” I said. “It is enough for me.”

Bidding Clip goodnight, I left the unfinished draft at his feet and, exhausted, retired to my bedroom, and stared into the mirror.

For a second, I thought I caught a glimpse of a stunningly beautiful woman staring back at me, an amused smile on her face. I blinked twice and then she was gone.