A Conversatation

Remember the legend of Peter Schliemel?

She responds to the interior voice. "No."

Yes, you do.

"Go away. Be quiet."

Schliemel was a German boy, who hated his shadow. He was afraid of it; he wanted it gone. He managed to get rid of it.

She thinks about memory, about grief, about loss and reclamation. She's already sure this story has a moral, one she won't like. "And?"

He was miserable forever after.

"What does that have to do with me?"

If you don't know, you aren't paying attention. Now go play with your nice shadow. Your past? Is now.

deb, that gave me the shivers and the willies.

Excellent, deb.

Thanks. Chi, why the willies? Is it the substance of that conversation, or the fact that she's having it with herself, and can't shut her own shadow-voice up any better than she can shut the shadow memories away?

My fourth novel, And Then put Out The Light, had an ongoing conversation between the protagonist, Emily, and her nagging inner voice, Emmy Deer.

Willies because of thinking that my past is eating me up now. For me, my past is something that I like to think of as over, not something I want weighing down on me all the time. While I understand that my past has influenced who I have become, I want to keep my past as just a hint of influence. Kind of like liquor in a recipe. You want some for flavor, but you don't want it to overpower with an alcohol flavor.

Ah. Yep, I can see that being willie-inducing. But if the girl's past is - as her inner voice suggests - just a shadow? It can't damage her. Just her own psyche's way (hello, Professor Jung!) of telling her to stand in shadow as much as light.

Of course, it's fairly hypocritical, coming from me, because I need my past back, I lost too much of it, I'm tired of snatching at shadows and I want the full ghoulish creature, meat on its bones and all.

I took Tep's suggestion and got...
Shadow 1,

I think the thing you most need to know about me is, unlike her, I want everything. Unlike her, I think I deserve it.. My body is my theme park. I can never have enough rides. But when the thrill is gone, you are too. She’s the one that pines; sends the Christmas cards, calls to remember your birthday. I’m all about the sweaty present. She would never let me out, if she could help it. Her body cooperates with this. I’m mostly a curl of her lip, a passing thought after swearing she’s okay with being ‘just friends”, an image of The Kiss That Killed Monogamy.(Any skill she has at that came from me. Don’t let her kid you about that.Her biggest passion is still justice, Good luck getting that to make your heart beat faster, or the color to stand in your cheeks.) Shadow 2

Um, ok, so I’m, like, somebody’s shadow. Not bad for a flatchested girl in the seventh grade. Sometimes I come out when she does new things, or meets somebody new, or when she worries about being broke, or who is going to take care of us. Sometimes I am soo ugly it’s embarrassing. I don’t know how we stand us. I think everybody knows better and is cooler and smarter and stronger than me. It’s just, totally obvious.I’m just, like nothing? Mom says it’ll get better one day, but she’s my mom, what would she say? That she got pregnant with a nobody? Especially after almost dying over it? I think not.She has to at least fake like we’re something, or her life’s a big waste.

Whoa.

Damn, erika. The Jungian in me just stood up and saluted.

Anima and shadow. Damn.

Very nice, erika. Same theme, but totally different.

Looking Glass War

She gets up in the morning and looks in the mirror. It’s always the same face; same brown hair, same green eyes. There’s nothing special about the broad cheeks, narrow lips, and downward drooping eyes. She strokes blush in layers over her cheeks attempting to lengthen the face. Lines her lips to make them plumper and lines her eyes to make them wider with a bit of an upward tilt at the outer corner. Beneath the bright lights of the mirror, she can see no flaws. It’s only as she turns that the shadows catch her eye. Who is that?

As is very often when I write nowadays, am wishing I hadn't been quite so honest.