{"id":5604,"date":"2025-05-15T21:04:24","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:04:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/?p=5604"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:04:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:04:24","slug":"the-shadow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/2025\/05\/the-shadow\/","title":{"rendered":"the shadow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Author<\/strong>: C. M.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Her footsteps have been haunting me for days now. Click. Clack. Click. Clack.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

One could imagine her to be a conversation long overdue, feelings unheard or unseen, words ignored. Truly, she is much worse. She is the personification of my own thoughts, worries and anxiety-induced overthinking. Click. Clack. Click. Clack.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

She takes the form of a beautiful young woman. Brown and luscious strands of hair caress her shoulders and dance across her back as she walks. She smells good, she always smells like him. Her heels devise a plaintive melody on the ground as she follows me, always three steps behind. It is a sound which transcends silence. That confident and defying smile is always playing on her red-kissed mouth. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. <\/em>It makes me sick.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

She follows me into my home and waits until I\u2019m seconds from slumber to crawl into bed with me. She gets comfortable under the covers and snuggles up against me. Sleep avoids me, as she whispers into my ear until the sun starts to rise. She tells me about things that didn\u2019t happen, things that aren\u2019t happening, things that will never happen. Things that are as stuck to the enclosures of my mind as my hair is to her glossed lips.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

It really isn\u2019t her fault. She doesn\u2019t know how to stop herself. And even if she did, chances are she wouldn\u2019t be able to. She is, after all, only a projection of my imagination. She is a story I created by pulling, pushing, twisting, tearing apart the truth, and then putting it back together. She is entirely unrecognisable from what she used to be at the start. Click. Clack. Click. Clack.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

If you look closely, you will see that her eyes lack a certain depth, that they seem eerily empty. Her hair flows in non-existent wind. Her skin is airbrushed, her teeth too white and her smile too pretty to last. You won\u2019t hear her breathe or move, the only sound emitting from her is the broken rhythmical tune of her shoes. Click. Clack. Click. Clack<\/em>. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

Sometimes I want to push her away. I want to lock her in a room and never let her out, but that would leave things unsolved and hurting. I feel guilty for having her around. I feel guilty for making her come to life. She is the personification of a twisted, perverted, and ugly truth which created a monster to hunt me. She didn\u2019t ask for this. Neither did I, really, but my brain had other plans. Click. Clack. Click. Clack.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n

(Sometimes, when I\u2019m with him, she disappears. Silence is finally heard again. I can breathe. I can sleep. I know one day she will leave for good. Perhaps after another conversation, another evening, another night. I look forward to that day, my back is getting tired of pulling this shadow around.)<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: C. M. Her footsteps have been haunting me for days now. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. One could imagine her to be a conversation long overdue, feelings unheard or unseen, words ignored. Truly, she is much worse. She is the personification of my own thoughts, worries and anxiety-induced overthinking. Click. Clack. Click. Clack. She takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002997,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[37],"class_list":{"0":"post-5604","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-2025-spring","7":"tag-prose"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002997"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5604"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5644,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5604\/revisions\/5644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}