The sunlight had just begun to flutter and light the sky, and already he was rushing nonchalantly out the door, closing it quietly. He didn’t want his parents to know what he was doing—it would only worry them more. God knew he didn’t want to worry them any more than they had already worried. The cutting, the stories, the reports on his mood; each one was making his parents lose sleep at night. He didn’t want to worry them, but it would not stop him from being himself. Let his parents sleep while he ambled noiselessly, pointlessly, alone across the silent streets as those inside drank peaceful oblivion. He was alone with his thoughts, with his shadow. His shadow was a stupid one to follow him about like it did. But its noiseless company was appreciated all the same.

The streets were empty; the homes were empty where he walked, out to the darkest, most impoverished places of the city. They were ramshackle, dilapidated. One day, those same buildings may have cried out in rich new paint, “Live in me! You husbands! Go off to your blue-collar jobs. Produce and bring back to the smiling children. You wives! Watch the children. Work hard, and console your husband, as he shall console you when you are downtrodden.” Maybe someday they had said that. Now they could not so much as whisper. But if they could, they would ask for help, and be neglected.

And when he made his way back to the rich parts of town, the ones where the houses had once cried out, “The businessman and the employers live here. Tip your cap; sing their praises.” The houses still shouted the same thing, and the owners of them did too. But as the decrepit homes were once filled with warmth, the brick ones away from the shadow of the smog were filled with a cold, analytical emptiness. Their hearts were empty.

These thoughts passed through his head as he walked, and he kept them inside his being; maybe they would be useful for something someday. Someday.

But today. Today, he was returning home, and the sun had not come much higher to its eternal throne in the sky. Today, no one had noticed him. Only that shadow had. It had followed him through the glass shards in bare feet, had not so much as covered his nose whilst pacing through the dumpsters and their filth, and had walked with him across the boulevard of broken dreams that was definite, dreary, and damned.

“You’re my only friend,” he said, turning towards his alter ego to thank him. But when he did, his enigmatic silhouette turned away. He reflected on that and thought, “My shadow certainly is intelligent…”