Shade

 

 

“It is quiet here isn’t it?”

“What do you want shade? Be gone.”

“Now, now that is not that very friendly is it?”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

“Perhaps, but I have much that I must say to you.”

“I will not listen.”

“Oh but you will, you have no hope other than to listen to me. Who shall I be? How about me? Do you remember me? You always said how my voice sounded like the embodiment of comfort, do you recall saying that? Do you? Do you remember how often you asked me to call you late at night and read to you until you drifted off to sleep? I did it willingly didn’t I? I read those words, those favourite passages of you until I could hear nothing until the soft sound of the breathing, regular and indicative that you had succumbed, at last to sleep? I imagine you would like me to do that now wouldn’t you? To hear my words of comfort once again. Would you wish to hear me speak again? No, my you have changed and yet you always said it was me that had changed? Perhaps I shall change. I shall be me instead; do you remember me now? Does this force remind you of me? I was better than her, you made it so clear that that was the case. Forget her and her bedtime stories, she treated you like a child didn’t she? I know what you really wanted didn’t I? I understood you didn’t I? How does it feel to hear my voice now after all this time? You’d thought this one was forgotten hadn’t you?”

“Shut up, I never forget.”

“Oh but you try to, you try so hard to forget me and all of the others.”

“No I don’t.”

“Please don’t lie, I can see through them now. I admit, I never used to be able to, but you were oh so very good at making your lies seem like reality. I had no idea. I was so in awe of you. You were everything I had ever wanted, but that is what you do isn’t it? You showed me yourself so I loved myself. It is clever, I must give you that and there is no denying you are very clever, the brightest and the best that I have ever met. Yet, what do you use this gift for? To wound, to maim and to cripple?”

“You do not trouble me shade, I know what you are.”

“Do you? That is good. For so long I thought you did not, but you are realising now aren’t you?”

“I have always known. I know everything.”

“Of course you do. You taught me everything. Yes, it is me now. How about that for a trip down memory lane. You taught me everything and yet I was the first of them all to realise wasn’t I?”

“It is you? Where have you been? Stop this, you keep shifting, it is unfair.”

“Oh I have always been here, always watching you. My you have become quite the polished article haven’t you? I always knew you were destined for greatness though. I was the first to know.”

“It is my right. You must not come here and mock me.”

“I am not mocking you. I love you. We all loved you. You know that because you gave us a perfect love.”

“Yes I did and do you see what you all did with it?”

“Now now, let us not play that game.”

“What game is that?”

“You are doing it already.”

“Cease your riddles, I am the doer, you are done to, leave me, I have much to do.”

“But I cannot leave you, you will not let me go.”

“I tell you now, leave, leave me be.”

“It does not change does it? You want me, you do not want me, yet here I am. You said that nobody is allowed to leave and you have me still. Does that not please you?”

“Not when you intend to mock me, no.”

“Yet he always mocked me.”

“Not another? Why do you plague me like this? You are no longer welcome.”

“You mocked me, you belittled me, you made me feel like nothing and all I wanted to do was to please you, why did you do this to me? Please? Tell me what I did wrong?”

“You come here now and seek those answers? You should have known. I showed you how you should be and then you failed me.”

“I did not fail you.”

“I did not fail you.”

“Nor did I.”

“Nor I.”

“Nor I.”

“Silence!”

“Such a favoured weapon of yours. How you tore me apart when you layered ice over our love.”

“Not you as well, what do you want?”

“I just want to know.”

“You come, you all come, masquerading as wanting to know the truth but I know you, I know your kind, I have you in my eye, you are here to torment me. I am no fool; I know exactly what you want.”

“We just wanted you.”

“Yes, you.”

“You.”

“I wanted you.”

“Just you. Nobody else.”

“Quieten your tongues you harpies, must you whirl about me, your soft words that are barbed and poisonous to my own ears? I command you, leave, leave me be.”

“You said you loved me the best and that you would never let me go.”

“You told me you loved me with a perfect love and that we would always be together.”

“You told me that you loved me unlike any love you had ever known and that nothing would tear us apart.”

“You told me that your love was pure and unblemished and would last for ever.”

“You told me that your love was beyond that of any other person and that I would bask in it until my dying day.”

“Do you see how you said all those of things to us? Promises, vows and declarations. We believed you and we still do, we still want you.”

“Then why come here and torture me?”

“Because you found perfection, you had the very thing that you always wanted and you let it go.”

“I did not.”

“You did.”

“No, I did not. You do not know, you think you do, but you do not know.”

“But we do know, we know better than you realise. You called us idiots, you called us fools, you called us morons and yet who is the fool now? Who had the one thing that he always wanted and let it go? Let her go?”

“Go to hell, all of you shades, go to hell.”

“Go to hell? We are already here aren’t we? With you.”