In the syrupy glow of sunset, his shadow stretched itself thin and long across the tired old bricks, like some lanky, reluctant confidant. It was as much a part of him as his own skin, yet it lived its own silent, separate life, a smudge of darkness in a world too bright for truth. This shadow knew all the quiet corners of his soul, the places where joy and sorrow melted together into a sort of gentle, enduring gray. It followed him, a loyal echo of each weary step, a silent witness to the absurdity and beauty of simply being. As the light faded, the shadow seemed to stand a moment longer, a dark, fleeting monument to the man it had quietly observed, a man whose every breath was a poem written in the secret language of shadows. And then, like everything else, it slipped away into the tender arms of the universe, leaving behind nothing but the faint memory of having been. ~ on shadows by m0dest