Entertaining Shadows

This story is a complete overhaul of my other story "Title Forgotten." This was done to add more literary purpose and make it more realistic. If you liked the more... supernatural version, you might find this story repeats some parts. The overall story, however is very different.
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The bus screeched to a halt as it came upon the railroad tracks. There was no train, but that was the rule. The car behind it, and the boy inside, waited impatiently for the clumsy vehicle to accelerate. Schuyler liked buses, the unstoppable mass of metal and glass, wheels that thump loudly over tracks. He conceived a train even larger and more momentous speeding along the railway at just the right, or wrong, moment. The school bus was struck, its front and back ends wrapping around the sides of the train explosively. Schuyler saw millions of shards of glass and torn aluminum bursting from the impact, sparking under the train’s wheels. He heard a brief cacophony of screams that ended in a shrill crash. What was left of the bus flipped and tumbled parallel to the tracks, tearing itself to pieces, crushing out the lives of five dozen small children.

Looking sidelong, Schuyler grinned as the car behind the bus thumped over the tracks. Of course, nothing like the boy’s vision happened, but he entertained the thought. In the rear view mirror, his father raised a brow to his indecipherable smirk.

The silence that before was peaceable became awkward. “Son, I want you to know that this won’t affect the rest of your life. A misdemeanor and nothing more. I’ll take care of it. Your mother and I love you very much, but sometimes we don’t get along. Don’t let that be the reason for all this. It’s not, is it?”

Schuyler said nothing to the eyes in the rear view mirror.

“I’m a very driven person. I like to be the center of attention, as I’m sure you know. Mom is more of a melancholic like you. We’re the very opposite of each other. So if there’s tension there, I’m sorry.”

He seemed on the verge of chuckling but bit his lip. “Do me a favor. When you get married, chose someone who really fits your personality well. You’d probably like a hot sanguine,” he said, winking, “someone who likes to talk and have fun.” His tone of voice hushed to a somber drone. “Life is too short for regrets.”

Soon their car arrived at the empty parking lot. It was a tidy place. Neatly trimmed bushes and freshly mowed grass framed the building, a purposefully blatant testament to the quality of care within. The building itself had bright white window frames set in small, russet bricks. Every corner, every angle, was preternaturally sharp and clean, like a perspective sketch drawn with a straight edge.

It all reminded Schuyler of those nice towns in TV shows where everything was quaint. Sunday papers were left at the doorstep on the floor mat, families sat together at the dining room table every night, and the biggest crime was Opie chucking rocks at a street lamp. But Schuyler had a deeper understanding of such places. He knew horrible things happened below radar in this nice building and in this cute little town, things done in dark rooms or behind the backs of loved ones: a husband sneaks into the house late at night with his secretary when his wife is gone, and his child is pretending to sleep upstairs; a mother looks at her husband across the dinner table with murder on her mind, and her son watches the light leave them like a dying animal.

Best of all, Schuyler thought, are the sins of one’s mind.

“Dr. Espoir is a nice man,” his father whispered in a scripted way. “I want you to mind your manners. All he wants to do is talk to you. You can do that, right?” Walking beneath his dad’s arm as the door was held open for him, Schuyler nodded noncommittally.

If the outside was bright and cheery, the inside had a murmuring sadness lurking behind first appearances. With worn (but recently vacuumed) carpeting, faded daisy wallpaper, and brown furniture from the seventies, the lobby looked like a scam artist’s front room. Schuyler father was the conman, the rest of the world the conned. Beyond the hallway in the back, Schuyler expected an empty, uncarpeted space for rent with wooden rafters instead of ceiling tiles. The white fluorescent lights above his head made a buzzing sound like a fly bumping against a window, trying to escape.

“Hello,” chimed the lady behind the desk. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Yes. The name is Schuyler Heimlich. H-E-I-M-L-I-C-H. I’m the father. We’re a couple minutes early.”

“That’s okay. Dr. Espoir got in from his hunting trip just last night, but surprisingly he’s on schedule." Schuyler hated waiting, just sitting in some ugly room doing nothing. In those moments he saw himself from another point of view, external and unbiased. What he saw unnerved him.

He noticed the clock’s ticking had the quality of a Tourette’s patient, an irritating palpitation that didn’t quite flow with time. The ticks sped up and slowed down almost to a flat line, then stopped altogether. Schuyler doubted the clock really stopped – how could it? But that didn’t change its complete stillness as he stared at it for over a minute.

At the desk, his father was telling the secretary about his son’s genius. Schuyler rolled his eyes and sighed loud enough to be heard. There was always some story, something to brag about. This time there was a different tone to the story, almost like his father was trying to convince her there was really nothing wrong with the boy. There couldn’t possibly be something wrong with Donald E. A. Heimlich’s boy; he’s much too bright. This story was about the time Mr. Heimlich brought him to the nearby university. “You’ll like it, I promise,” Schuyler’s father had told him. “See all the college students, the buildings, and all the computers. I donated some of those Hewlett Packard’s, you know.” Yes… Schuyler knew. “You’ll love going here in seven years or so. None of the classes are taught by TA’s, ever. I don’t want to pay five or six hundred dollars for a class if the guy up front doesn’t have his doctorate.” He was strolling down a hallway with groups of students studying at tables to either side, Schuyler at his side trying to keep up. The boy wasn’t really listening; he was paying more attention to a couple quizzing each other on something. What they were saying became clearer as he and his father passed. Donald’s favorite part of the story, the part he was at the moment pointing out to the secretary, was something Schuyler said. One of the students read from a book on her lap, asking the man next to her, “In which layer of the atmosphere does weather form?” Her boyfriend answered wit ha shoulder shrug, and Schuyler looked up at his father and whispered, “It’s the mesosphere.”

Smiling politely, the lady behind the desk nodded at Donald. “Yes, he seems like a smart kid.”

“I think that was almost three years ago. Yeah, he was only ten years old, my son. Those college kids didn’t know what they were talking about. I was about to have my boy instruct them in meteorology.” Donald laughed too loudly for the size of the room.

From off to the side, sitting in one of the ugly brown chairs, Schuyler snickered. Donald, not understanding, smiled and winked at the boy. I told him it was the troposphere, Schuyler brooded. Looking again at the motionless clock, he became angry. Where is that damn doctor? I want nothing to do with this stupid evaluation, but anything is better than my dad’s asinine bragging.

As if the universe were actually kind, a balding man in a black suit with a wing-tipped collar and white shirt stepped through the door beyond the secretary’s desk. His proud father thankfully fell silent. Even the clock began moving along at a regular pace.

“I see my eight o’clock is here,” he observed. “Schuyler? Come this way please. This won’t take too long.”

Donald patted his son on the shoulder on his way out, whispering, “I’ll be back at the end of the hour, kiddo. Take it easy.” And so, with nothing left for him in the ugly room, Schuyler fell in step behind the doctor.

The hallway was like a scene in a TV in which the brightness was turned up too high. White walls, pictures with sparkling silver frames, white ceiling tiles latticed with little holes. The stark white fluorescent tubes in the ceiling hummed a high pitched sound that was only heard by an inaccessible part of the brain. Schuyler knew it was making noise, but he couldn’t hear it directly.

Along the walls were evenly spaced office doors, all of which were closed. Walking by them took some effort on the boy’s part. Each door would catch his discerning eye for a heartbeat, a glimpse of one cracking open the slightest bit or a flicker of a shadow from the other side. Everything only ever happened in his peripheral vision. Schuyler believed someone was waiting behind every door, listening intently, ear to the wood. He refused to believe that wrenching them all open would reveal nothing but mundane offices.

From close behind his ear, Schuyler swore he heard an amused whisper. “The infant of the poor is seized for a debt.” The tiny blonde hairs on his neck prickled.

All the while Dr. Espoir’s heels clicked on the floor. Schuyler glanced down and saw the beige carpet. Either the noise was in his mind, or there was no carpet and his sight was the culprit.

And the thought that crossed the boy’s mind was ridiculous in its timing: This guy doesn’t look like much of a hunter.

Finally coming to the doctor’s office room, Schuyler flinched as the door opened. He expected for a rapid heartbeat to see his dad standing over his mother’s dead body. He killed her because he hated her, and I’ll be given to some orphanage. Instead, the room was empty save for the cherry wood furniture and the doctor’s doctorate of psychology hanging on the wall. Schuyler let out his breath.

“Make yourself at home,” said the doctor. The man took a seat in his cozy leather chair as Schuyler sat across from him in a char about as comfortable as the ones in the lobby, made worse by his slouch.

Dr. Espoir shuffled some papers on his desk and rested his arms before looking up. His cuff links clanked on the desktop. “Let’s begin.”

Sky’s friend Max powers up the game and sits back down between Sky and Daniel. “Let’s begin,” he says, tapping his hands to the music playing on the stereo.

The room is crowded by the three boys, and the shelves full of books take up all the extra space near the walls. Pale light from the television makes their faces a harsh study in chiaroscuro. Golden light spills into the room as Sky’s mother sticks her head through the door. “Sky, I want to you unload the dishwasher before I get back. Don’t wait until then. Are you listening?”

“Yes,” Sky drones.

A sour expression distorts his mother’s face. “What are you listening to?”

“Music.”

“Turn it off, it’s horrible.”

Sky rolls his eyes. “Dad doesn’t seem to have a problem with it.”

“Your dad is…” She seems at a loss for civilized words. “I don’t care. They might accept that kind of thing in your father’s Lutheran church, but not mine.”

This again, he laments. Sky’s shoulder’s tense. “As if there’s a lot of difference between Lutherans and Baptists.”

Sky’s mother looks disappointed. “I sure hope you’re not going to Hell, Sky. It was make me very sad.” With that, she leaves, closing the door behind her.

“Nagging nebbish,” Sky grumbles. She can’t stand up to dad, so she bothers me with it.

Daniel nudges Sky’s arm. “If your parents get divorced, I’m banging your mom.” Max chuckles along with him, but Sky stares at the dying people on the screen with a humorless look between anger and longing.

After an hour of killing typical villains, the three boys tire of the game and shut it off. Max gets up and stretches. “It’s kinda creepy when no one’s home in your house, Sky. There’d be more light if the walls weren’t dark blue.”

“Yeah, it’s a little depressing,” Daniel remarks. He nods his head to the music, which is turned down after Mrs. Heimlich’s demand. He then gets up and heads out the door toward the bathroom at the end of the hall.

Max fiddles around with Sky’s selection of video games, rifling through them on one of this many shelves. “Most of these are fantasy or sci-fi games. No racing, fighting, or sports?”

Sky shakes his head. “I don’t like stuff that was to do with the real world. It’s boring.”

Daniel’s voice is heard from the hallway before he enters the room. “You have a candle in your bathroom? We should to one of those freaky séances.”

“Why?” asks Max. “We don’t even know how.”

Daniel shrugs coming into Sky’s room. “So, it’ll be funny. I remember this thing my brother told me that makes people see the devil in the mirror. I don’t believe him; how about you?”

The question hangs in the air and seems to land on Sky. Sky shrugs. “It sounds stupid and make up.”

“Someone is a wee bit scared, Max.”

Max agrees. “Sky, come on. It’ll be better if you do it. You know Daniel will lie about what he sees if we let him do it, and there’s no way I’m doing it. I admit I’m too chicken.”

For some reason Sky stands and lets his friends usher him to the bathroom like executioners. The pale blue light from the empty television casts lanky shadows ahead of them as they move forward.

Max finds a lighter in the kitchen while Daniel whispers something into Sky’s ear. Sky stands outside the bathroom, looking in. It feels like looking into a grave and not being able to see the bottom. At first, Sky is bored with the whole thing, but he is beginning to sweat. Ouija boards don’t work, and neither will this.

“You look like you’ve already seen a ghost,” Daniel laughs. “Just ask the riddle three times and wait a while.”

“Done,” Max announces, setting the lit candle by the sink. Sky’s friends move away as he steps into the bathroom. They pull the door until it’s left open by only a couple inches.

Sky slowly turns toward the mirror, feeling minute breeze and hearing every meaningless sound in the house. The shower nozzle drips. The door from the living room to the outside pops under the pressure of the wind. His eyes take forever to adjust to the dark. Before even opening his mouth, Sky feels a strong compulsion to run away. He hates being enclosed and completely blind. To help the transition of his eyes, he looks away from the candle. When he turns back, the flickering orange light outlines all the bottles on the sink and the perfect rectangle of the mirror.

A weight settles at the bottom of Schuyler’s stomach, a hot, nauseating feeling. Is the room getting darker? No, the wick is still burning high. But something is different about the mirror. Shouldn’t he be able to see himself, even in this candlelight?

A small window behind the door framed him like a portrait. His face was hard to ready in the contrast. “Many of the people that come through here find they actually enjoy these sessions, as they are able to unload what they are thinking and feeling without regard to consequence. I presume you understand that I cannot disclose what we discuss because of doctor-patient confidentiality laws?”

Schuyler inclined his head, as much of a nod as the doctor would get.

“Excellent. I’m sure you know why you were forced to be here, but I hope you’ll take the opportunity to talk about anything you want, really. I just want to get to know you. That’s all the evaluation is.

“Do you like sports?” Schuyler shrugged, not caring how the doctor decided to spend the time. “No? I usually follow the World Cup, but France hasn’t done the greatest. Germany will probably win unless Italy pulls off a miracle.

“How about the outdoors? My secretary probably mentioned my hunting trip.”

Schuyler’s voice cracked a bit. “I guess I like nature.”

Dr. Espoir beamed a smile. “It’s pretty amazing when you’re out there, feeling the majesty of the land, the beauty of the woods and the animals. Both psychology and hunting require the same virtue, which is why I like it: patience, being able to sit and take in what I hear and see.

“Has your dad ever taken you hunting?” Schuyler shook his head. He had an image in his head of the doctor sitting in some tree stand with a Remington in his hands, sighting down the barrel at a sickly creature with Schuyler’s face. “Well, you should try it sometime. It can be boring until the time comes when you spot a fine, muscular buck in the bushes. Nothing gives me more of an adrenaline rush than that.”

The doctor cracked his knuckles. “Anyway, you are obviously a bright young man. I’ve heard about your grades, and you seem like the kind of student who takes his studies seriously. But there must be something troubling you. I’m having a hard time understanding why someone with your talents would jeopardize your future.” Of course Schuyler knew Dr. Espoir would come to that. The small talk didn’t matter; he was just trying to be nice and establish trust. “Remember, I’m not here to lecture you. I just want to get to know you. Do you want to talk about it?”

Um, no. Schuyler shrugged again. He had to ask himself if the light was getting dimmer. There was another buzz that reminded him of flies.

More snickers from the bedroom. His friends’ faces are suspended in the narrow slab of light created by the cracked open door. “Anything yet, Sky?” someone asks. Another voice says, “Try saying it again.”

Sky doesn’t respond, and he hasn’t said anything. He is transfixed by the mirror, a pool of black behind the flicker of a single rose red candle. The bathroom tiles are cool on his feet, and the flowery candle aroma is warm in his nostrils. He holds completely still as he tries to see his reflection more clearly.

Sky doesn’t have to say the riddle because he already feels he knows the answer. He thinks it, but his thoughts don’t feel like his own. I am the wind of a million frightened whispers, the dark conclusion of a million murderous thoughts; who am I?

The boy in the mirror, who else? Yes, something is definitely wrong with his reflection. Sky leans closer to the figure, his eyes wide and dilated. A wave of needle pricks creeps over his scalp as the figure’s expression becomes clear.

There’s laughing as the door slams shut.

Schuyler knew the room was definitely getting darker. His palms were moist and cold, and his heart throbbed like a wound. Just take a deep breath, he told himself. The darkness in the bathroom and the wrongness of the boy in the mirror rushed back to him. He vividly remembered slamming his fists onto the door and screaming until his throat was hoarse. His friends on the other side froze in surprise, too frightened to open the door with the crazed boy behind it, cursing and swearing.

I could have opened the door, he kept reminding himself, but I panicked.

“Are you alright, Schuyler?” Dr. Espoir’s calm voice broke the growing spell of panic. “You look uncomfortable.”

“I’m fine.” The boy wanted to leave but knew he had thirty minutes left. The lights somehow seemed not to illuminate the room, bright as they were. There was just the glare of the ceiling and the doctor’s shadowy face, framed by the window. Breathe.

A funny sound rose and fell even as Schuyler drew in and let out a lungful of air. It sounded like a respirator one might find in a hospital ward or a nursery home. His eyes wandered around the room, searching for the source of the strange noise. As they fell to the floor, he almost shrieked. One spot in the beige carpet next to his feet was swollen. The bloated spot sunk with a wheeze and rose again, rising and falling like the chest of an old man in his last moments of life.

Schuyler snapped his attention back to the doctor before he could suspect anything. Surely he would think the boy was crazy and hallucinating. Wasn’t he? Even so, Schuyler didn’t want to go into a home somewhere where he wouldn’t be an embarrassment to his dad.

“Let me know if you need anything,” offered Dr. Espoir. “Anyway, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“I guess not.”

“Do you like school?”

Still the carpet was breathing, and perhaps dying, if that made sense. Schuyler did his best to ignore it by talking. Anything to get out of here.

“It’s okay. I do fine, but I don’t have a favorite class or anything.”

“Do you have friends there? Any girl you have a crush on.” Dr. Espoir smiled with practiced neutrality. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“I have some friends at school, but they’re more like acquaintances.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They never like to discuss anything serious. I can’t talk about some things with them.” Schuyler felt uncomfortable, and not because the chair’s cushion was warn.

The doctor responded predictably. “Like what?”

“I don’t know, stuff about beliefs and fears and dreams. They just seem shallow to me.”

Dr. Espoir scratched his chin and nodded slowly. “Hmm. Have you ever tried to talk to them about serious stuff? Maybe you’re just not opening up to them. You might find your friends to be more receptive that you think.

“Do you talk to your parents about serious stuff?”

Schuyler scoffed. He couldn’t think of a time when he had a deep conversation with his parents, ever. “Okay, I’ll take that as a no. But isn’t that was parents are for? We grow up learning from them, and the only way to do that his to hear what they have to say. Think of how concerned your mom and dad must be when they have no clue what goes on in your life. It’s hard to know someone without sharing a deeper, supportive relationship with him. I’m sure that’s why your dad has taken you here, because he sees what you did to the tree and wonders if you’ll be okay. If you take anything from this session, it should be that you have to learn to share your mind with others. You’re very smart, and you have a lot to offer, so why be so distant?

“Are you willing to tell me why you burned the tree down?”

Schuyler had to think for a moment. He couldn’t fabricate a story that the doctor wouldn’t see through, but he didn’t want to sound crazy. Even though there must be something wrong with me.

He decided to tell the partial truth.

“I think I was scared. The tree was not far from my window, and it was on a windy night. Usually the tree’s shadow doesn’t come into my room, but it was a bright moon that was low in the sky. I couldn’t sleep; those shadows were like faces that were always changing.” But one face was always there. There was something wrong with the face of the boy in the mirror. What was it? “Maybe… after a few hours – when the shadows were creeping toward me on the ceiling – I went to the garage to look for the curtains I remember seeing in a box. I was going to put them on my window. I found the gas can, and… I don’t know. I was really tired and cold.”

Cool moisture in the air clings to his clothes. Sky’s eyes are wet, and the flame dancing wildly at the end of the match twinkles through those tears. He is tired and his back aches. The leafy smell of the woods mingles with the gasoline. It’s already all over the base of the tree. There’s no going back.

“Who am I?” he repeats to no one. Sky is the boy in the mirror, the dark conclusion of a million murderous thoughts. That face is in the tree somewhere, lurking to be found when the light is right, when the room is dark. Sky’s face. It was a dead face in the mirror. Sky shakes his head in denial. He can’t believe the face in the mirror was dead.

“Not for long.”

Sky throws down the match.

God, it’s marvelous! The ground around the tree flares angrily, hissing as the grass turns to ash. Smoke billows from the base of the trunk and drifts into the woods in thick clouds. The tree catches fire; Sky is sure of it. Fire crawls up the trunk in hot orange streams, curling and flickering like demonic, forked tongues. It’s incredibly hot and bright, a premature dawn. The tears in the boy’s eyes dry up in the pressing heat radiating from the blaze. Magnificent conflagration…

Worms are squirming their way out of the flaking ground, writhing in the dry air. The tree pops loudly, and Sky steps back. The fire grows brighter and climes higher into the branches of the tree. He basks in its brilliance, arms thrown wide, smiling despite the plumes of smoke rippling from the moist wood burning. Cracking sounds permeate the woods. Then, sirens in the distance.

“I don’t know why I was crying. I was really tired, and it all happened so fast. When I burned the tree, it felt good; it felt good to burn the shadows out of my room.” Schuyler folded his hands together and sighed. The place in the rug that was expanding like a swollen grave had stopped its rhythmic palpitations. The lights overhead shined a constant, bright light that made everything in the room solid and crisp. A strange feeling came over the boy. Everything was normal.

“What you describe seems like a very extreme reaction the reason you’ve given. Do you think it was a rational decision?” Dr. Espoir asked, his tone professionally placid.

“I didn’t really think someone would call the fire department, and everyone else would wake up. I didn’t think the rest of the woods was in danger of catching fire. There was a lot of dew on the ground, and I thought it would prevent the fire from spreading.” Schuyler knew that wasn’t quite the truth. It was an awesome pillar of flames, and he enjoyed watching the tree blacken and crumble.

The doctor seemed to mull over something very grave. He clasped his chin in his hand and studied the boy’s expression. “It is all still very puzzling. I believe you didn’t mean to cause all this trouble. It sounds like there is a deeper reason for your sudden fear of the tree’s shadows. Why did they frighten you so much?”

Schuyler thought back to the shapes slithering up the dark blue wall and onto the ceiling. They feasted on one another, swallowing tail to head until only one shadow dominated the rest. He knew that night the face he saw in the shadow was the same face he saw in the mirror, and it was haunting him vengefully, stalking him behind every door, waiting and breathing beneath the floor. How could the doctor understand when Schuyler himself didn’t comprehend? All he knew was that he was protecting himself from the malignant reflection in that damned mirror. The reflection was the reason his mother and father hated each other. It was the reason Schuyler hated himself. And it was the reason a thing of beauty like the quaint little town could have such a rotten core, like a bad apple. Whatever caused the world to reveal itself to him differently Schuyler blamed on the reflection, because the reflection is the result of all life.

Why? Schuyler repeated the doctor’s question in his mind. Because I can’t accept my reflection.


The CD player/alarm goes off, blaring “Sic” from his Slipknot album. Sky jolts out of bed and slams the off button. That’s strange. It’s three o’clock in the morning, and he doesn’t remember ever setting the stupid thing to go off like that. “I can kill you,” he mutters in response to the song.

Feeling parched, Sky waddles his way through the dark to the kitchen for a glass of water. He groggily opens the fridge, and something equally strange happens. On a large plate, next to half a loaf of apple bread, he spots a reflection.

Sky peers into the reflection of his own face, framed by the shape of a blade left on the plate. It’s a large kitchen knife with smooth sides, and the face it shows is alive, for now. Sky knows that his face will be just like the face of the boy in the mirror someday. Remembering his psychiatrist, the hour long sessions every week, Sky thinks about his relationship with his parents. He wishes he could wake them and talk to them like he talked to Dr. Espoir. But they have their own problems.

He sneaked into his parents’ bedroom with the slowness of the moon crossing the night sky. He doesn’t know why, but he has to see. In his mind he whispers, who am I? Sky edges up to the bed where his proud father and timid, repressed mother are sleeping. They are turned away from each other, and Donald’s is the only face he can see. He holds the blade near his father’s neck, where the reflection will show him the man’s face.

His father looks pale and lifeless. The boy’s stomach pitches, and he almost throws up. His heart is a pain in his chest, like it can’t keep up with the horror he feels. Sky is compelled to run into the garage and get that gas can, to pour it onto their corpses and burn them. He’d watch his parents wither like the worms in the ground, and everything would come crashing down with them. But he notices something.

His parents’ hands are linked between them, and they are still breathing. Sky gets that bizarre feeling again, that everything is normal.