Shades of Humanity

                                    Leo Wiggins

There once was a boy who could control shadows. During the daytime, he would go to school and learn, but at night he would exercise his power, pushing and pulling the shadows so as to hide himself. 

While some might show off this power, and be proud of themselves, the Boy who could control shadows was neither, and often used the ability to hide himself. You see,  he was very shy, and often feared he would muck things up if he did anything. Because of this, he seldom acted.

In class, he was always quiet, sitting in the furthest seat from the front, and even without trying, he shroud that corner in darkness, the immediately surrounding desks and students reduced to mere blurs in the haze. The teacher, Ms. Williams, came to accept this as inevitable, and worked around it daily.

“Alright class,” Ms. Williams would say, “we’ll be reading silently today, so those of you near The boy who can control Shadows, you can move if you need more light.” At this, a few students would pick up their bags and move to other, less shadowed places in the classroom.

Other children often bullied him, in part because he was quiet and not very friendly, but also because they feared his powers. On the worst of days, he would come home crying, scraped and bruised. His mother, who worked all day long, was often too tired to comfort or feed him, so often he found himself cooking dinner and tending to his various wounds.

In his self-dependence, he began pulling away from people both physically and emotionally. With no one showing him any compassion, in turn, he felt his heart hardening, all capacity for love draining slowly but surely from the steadily pulsing mass.

It grew so bad, that soon he lost the ability to smile, and couldn’t recall what it was like to not hurt inside—so much was his suffering. 

One day, as he walked home from school, and as he got to a crosswalk, a girl stepped up beside him.

“Hello,” she said, her voice beautiful and pure. He glanced over, but said nothing. As much as he was dark, with dark hair and dark eyes, she was light, with beautiful blonde hair and the lightest blue eyes ever to see the world.

“My name is ‘Angela’, what’s yours?” He continued to say nothing, and without thinking about it, he began gathering the shadows around himself, retreating to the darkness. She smiled, and as she did so, the shadows began disappearing, her light penetrating his dark.

He looked at her then, and again the darkness began to gather. She smiled wider, and light pierced his shadows, warming him. After a long silence, bathed in her glow, he spoke.

“Hi. They call me the Boy who can control Shadows.”

“Hello, Boy who can control Shadows, my name is Angela, and I can control the Light.”

            The Boy who could control Shadows looked at her for a few moments before smiling.

            The light turned green, and together, they crossed the street.

            From that day forward, his life began improving. It started at first only with her—they would spend an hour each day sitting in silence on the hill that overlooked their town, each flexing their powers, balancing one another.

Soon, as he began talking with her in length about various things, like the weather, his life, and where he wanted to go with it all, he began opening up to other people as well, asking questions in class, and asking the bullies to, if they didn’t mind too much, not bother him so much, because, quite frankly, it was getting old.

As Angela pulled light into his life, his habit of gathering shadows about himself began to fade, and while the Boy who could control Shadows could still very much push and pull them at will, he did so less often, allowing the light to fall upon his shoulders, a proud declaration of his newly found courage.

Together, they found a completeness that had never before graced the world, creating a twilight unity between his dark and her light. Together, everything made sense, and no matter how dark and frightening the night, and bright and scorching the day, they had no fear, for together they could handle it.

They lived happily ever after.