The Shadow Who Left Our Side

“That's the curse of life, to think of what might have been.”
— Uhtred Ragnarsson

There is a person we all know. They stand strong, speak truth, take charge, take off, say yes when it’s time and no when it’s not for them. They are us under light that flatters. Us for the ages and ageless; crystallised in prime, final form. They rest easy at the destination of different paths. What then, of us? Already defined, ever-hardening.

What if — that’s it, the question forever begged — we were that other person. Would we look at our own life with envy? For us, the carriers of cat-killing curious minds with wonder in our blood and wander in our legs, nearly nothing is enough when greener grass may lay in wait, and who is to say for sure that the next one will not be the next one?

This person, the shadow who left our side, will always call out just in case it was us who strayed. Hell is who we could have been. Heaven is to know “enough.”