Speaker 1: US studios.
Speaker 2: The bedroom was almost dark. The curtains were drawn, and
Speaker 2: the hallway light had been turned off ten minutes ago,
Speaker 2: but Maya was not sleeping. She lay on her back,
Speaker 2: staring at the ceiling, her blanket pulled up to her chin.
Speaker 2: The house was quiet, except for the hum of the
Speaker 2: air conditioner and the distant sound of crickets through the window.
Speaker 2: Then she heard her father's footsteps in the hallway, soft,
Speaker 2: careful the way he walked. When he knew she was
Speaker 2: still awake, The door opened just enough for a hand
Speaker 2: to slip through, and then he was there, sitting on
Speaker 2: the edge of her bed, a small flashlight in his hand.
Speaker 2: Still up, he whispered. Maya nodded. She did not need
Speaker 2: to say anything. He always knew. He clicked the flashlight
Speaker 2: on and held up, letting the beam hit the wall
Speaker 2: across the room. The light made a bright circle on
Speaker 2: the painted surface, and for a moment it was just
Speaker 2: a circle, just light on wall. Then his other hand
Speaker 2: moved in front of it and a shape appeared. Two
Speaker 2: fingers extended, a thumb out. The shadow on the wall
Speaker 2: was a bird. Maya smiled. She had seen this a
Speaker 2: hundred times, but it never got old. The bird flapped
Speaker 2: its wings, rising and falling, and her father made a
Speaker 2: soft chirping sound with his mouth. Then the bird landed
Speaker 2: on an invisible branch, and the hand shifted, and the
Speaker 2: bird became a dog, trotting across the wall with a
Speaker 2: wagging tail. Where is the dog going, Maya asked, where
Speaker 2: do you think? Her father said, to the river course,
Speaker 2: to the river. Every dog goes to the river. Eventually,
Speaker 2: the dog trotted to the edge of the light circle
Speaker 2: and stopped. Then it sat down, and its ears perked up,
Speaker 2: and something new appeared beside it, a rabbit, small, twitching
Speaker 2: its nose. The rabbit hopped forward, and the dog watched it.
Speaker 2: And for a while the two shadows simply existed together
Speaker 2: on the wall, neither moving, both perfectly still. Maya's breathing slowed.
Speaker 2: She felt the warmth of her father beside her, the
Speaker 2: weight of his hand on the blanket, the steady rhythm
Speaker 2: of his voice as he began to tell a story.
Speaker 2: Once he said, there was a shadow that lived on
Speaker 2: a bedroom wall. It had been there as long as
Speaker 2: any one could remember. It watched the family every day.
Speaker 2: It saw the mother make breakfast. The hand on the
Speaker 2: wall dropped and the shadows vanished. The room was just
Speaker 2: a room again, dark and quiet. Maya held her breath.
Speaker 2: Then the flashlight clicked back on and a new shape appeared.
Speaker 2: This one was different. It was not a person or
Speaker 2: an animal. It was a small, trembling shape, like a
Speaker 2: leaf in wind. This was the shadow. When it was afreed,
Speaker 2: her father said, small shaking, not sured with real Maya
Speaker 2: watched the trembling shape on the wall. It did look afraid.
Speaker 2: It looked like something that might disappear at any moment.
Speaker 2: But then her father said, the shadow noticed something. Every morning,
Speaker 2: when the sun came through the window, it returned. Every evening,
Speaker 2: when someone turned on a lamp, it appeared again. The
Speaker 2: shadow had been disappearing every night for years, and every
Speaker 2: morning it came back. It had never once failed to return.
Speaker 2: The trembling shape on the wall slowly stopped trembling. It
Speaker 2: grew larger, steadier. It became a bird again, and this
Speaker 2: time the bird flew in a wide circle around the room,
Speaker 2: confident and free. The shadow realized that it was not
Speaker 2: made of darkness. Her father said, it was made of light,
Speaker 2: any light, the sun, a lamp, a flashlight. He moved
Speaker 2: the beam, and the bird followed, swooping across the wall.
Speaker 2: As long as there was light, there would be a shadow,
Speaker 2: and light the shadow discovered was everywhere. Maya's eyes were
Speaker 2: heavy now. The bird on the wall drifted to a
Speaker 2: stop and became a sleeping cat, curled into a tight surfa.
Speaker 2: The flashlight beam narrowed, making the cat smaller and smaller,
Speaker 2: until it was just a tiny shape and a pool
Speaker 2: of light. That is my favorite one, Maya murmured, the cat,
Speaker 2: the cat. Her father clicked the flashlight off. The room
Speaker 2: was dark again, but it was not the same darkness
Speaker 2: as before. It was a soft darkness, a familiar darkness,
Speaker 2: the kind that comes when someone you love is sitting
Speaker 2: beside you. Maya felt her father's hand on her forehead,
Speaker 2: gentle and warm, pushing her hair back from her face.
Speaker 2: Good Night, little shadow, he whispered, good night, Papa. She
Speaker 2: heard him stand, she heard the door close, she heard
Speaker 2: his footsteps fade down the hallway, and then she was
Speaker 2: alone in the dark. But she was not afraid. She
Speaker 2: thought about the shadow on the wall, the one that
Speaker 2: had been afraid of disappearing, the one that learned it
Speaker 2: was made of light. She thought about how every night
Speaker 2: the darkness came, and every morning it left. She thought
Speaker 2: about how the flashlight had made a bird and a dog,
Speaker 2: and a rabbit, and a family and a sleeping cat,
Speaker 2: all from the simplest things. A hand and a light
Speaker 2: maya closed her eyes. She breathed in, slowly, held it,
Speaker 2: and let it out. The air conditioner hummed, the cricket sang,
Speaker 2: and somewhere in the house a light was still on,
Speaker 2: casting a thin line of gold under her door, a
Speaker 2: reminder that even in the darkest room, there was always
Speaker 2: something glowing, always something wh