Speaker 1: Hollo, I moalcan stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Speaker 1: Let's get into it.
Speaker 2: There's a certain lopsidedness to late afternoon light in our town,
Speaker 2: though I can't say I ever gave it much thought
Speaker 2: until now. The sun always managed to snag on the
Speaker 2: copper gutters of the riverside cafes, glancing off ironwork railings,
Speaker 2: and skipping along the canal in golden zigzags. But this
Speaker 2: year something about it struck me as off kilter, as
Speaker 2: though the light itself had developed a private opinion about
Speaker 2: how things should be arranged. It was my first reunion
Speaker 2: back since retirement, and after a four decade career as postman.
Speaker 2: I had decided to mark the day with a walk
Speaker 2: beneath the apple trees lining the old Waterway. The leaves
Speaker 2: filtered sunlight into shifting coins on the stones, and out
Speaker 2: on the water. A pair of children chased a half
Speaker 2: deflated red ball between two rowboats, their shrieks Carrying to
Speaker 2: the far bank, I paused at my favorite spot, where
Speaker 2: an arched bridge cast a dark scolloped shape on to
Speaker 2: the canal. Closing my eyes for a moment, I let
Speaker 2: the breeze bring me the scent of sap and rising bread.
Speaker 2: The faint clatter of dishware from the riverside cafe sounds scents,
Speaker 2: textures I had carried in letters and locked inside my
Speaker 2: memory for years. It all seemed reassuring, except for a subtle,
Speaker 2: insistent oddness nudging at the periphery of my perception. When
Speaker 2: I looked across the promenade, I saw the first true
Speaker 2: sign that something wasn't right. The pair of children playing
Speaker 2: leap frog had somehow left their shadows behind, not on
Speaker 2: the stones where they should be, but further along, projected
Speaker 2: beneath the next apple tree, twisting across gravel as if
Speaker 2: untethered from their bodies. One child squatted down, leapt, and
Speaker 2: his shadow lagged a second before leaping after with a
Speaker 2: ghostly elasticity. Farther up, I noticed mister Senkler, whom I
Speaker 2: remembered as the old man who all always wore a
Speaker 2: straw hat and carried seed for the ducks. His shadow,
Speaker 2: instead of trailing him, drifted a few feet ahead, stretched
Speaker 2: at an angle that bore no relation to the sun's position,
Speaker 2: as though it walked of its own accord. Impatient for
Speaker 2: his slow shuffling gait, A group of teenagers laughed loudly
Speaker 2: as they posed for a selfie on the bridge out
Speaker 2: of habit I glanced at their shoes, ready to call
Speaker 2: out if they dropped anything. But what caught me was
Speaker 2: how the shadows at their feet had coalesced into a
Speaker 2: dark tangle, intermingled so thoroughly that it was impossible to
Speaker 2: tell whose belonged to whom. The effect was a little dizzying,
Speaker 2: like watching reflections in rippled water. Two girls silhouettes appeared
Speaker 2: to swap places, flickering in overlapping layers. Not all the
Speaker 2: shadows were misbehaving in the same way. Some seemed faded,
Speaker 2: almost tentative. I spotted a woman guiding her elderly mother
Speaker 2: along the bank, and the daughter's shadow was bold, sharp edged,
Speaker 2: nearly twice its normal darkness, striding purposefully beside her. Her
Speaker 2: mother's was paler, flickering weakly a few paces behind, until
Speaker 2: for two steps it seemed to merge with the daughter s,
Speaker 2: then trail after another passer by Altogether. I blinked. The
Speaker 2: sky was clear, the sun steady. I took off my hat,
Speaker 2: closed my eyes, counted to ten, then looked again. The
Speaker 2: misaligned shadows persisted, ignoring any law of physics had ever
Speaker 2: mail routed through the town square. My own shadow remained
Speaker 2: ordinary enough, attached, unremarkable, except for a subtle doubling at
Speaker 2: the toe, which I attributed to old eyes and the
Speaker 2: rough cobblestones. Just then, my neighbor Bernadette, waved jauntily from
Speaker 2: across the canal, unfazed, her shadow running true beside her.
Speaker 2: Despite all the chaos splayed out around us, she called
Speaker 2: back for the reunion. Are you we saved a slice
Speaker 2: of quince tart. I hesitated, half an impulse to bring
Speaker 2: up what I was seeing, but stopped short. Her cheerfulness
Speaker 2: was a kind of rebuke to my confusion. I raised
Speaker 2: my cap in greeting instead, and as a laughter drifted
Speaker 2: down stream, I found myself no closer to any explanation,
Speaker 2: just a growing, niggling itch of curiosity beneath the surface
Speaker 2: of an afternoon that refused to settle into comfort or sense.
Speaker 2: I suppose it's difficult to describe one's home without the
Speaker 2: risk of sounding sentimental. But our town, plotted on either
Speaker 2: side of the old canal, prided itself above all on
Speaker 2: its peculiar balance. Over forty years delivering mail from the
Speaker 2: tangle of upper hill cottages to the damp bellied keys
Speaker 2: had etched every bend and alley on to my heart.
Speaker 2: The sluice gate near the station with rusted initials, The
Speaker 2: bakery where fogged glass hid an endless parade of pastries.
Speaker 2: The fountains out front of the school, where lilies grew
Speaker 2: wild because no one could bear to weed them. People
Speaker 2: here aged into their routines like stones in water. Missus Papadaci's,
Speaker 2: with flower dusted to her, her elbows, humming as she
Speaker 2: needed fresh rounds for dawn deliveries. Fritz the clockmaker, keeper
Speaker 2: of a windowless shop that chimed at strange intervals, a
Speaker 2: man of such measured speech you wondered if his lungs
Speaker 2: ticked like one of his clocks. There was Miriam Knew
Speaker 2: at the library, and surprisingly opinionated about whom misshellfed the travelogs.
Speaker 2: And then Daniel, my oldest friend, now wearing the mare's chain.
Speaker 2: And the easy exhaustion of a man who grew up
Speaker 2: knowing every argument your father ever had. Tourists photographed our
Speaker 2: nineteenth century bridges and sniffed politely at the flower boxes.
Speaker 2: But there were secrets they never learned, the summer parade
Speaker 2: with lanterns adrift on borrowed row boats, and the sly
Speaker 2: old folk songs sung after midnight, when only those born
Speaker 2: under our steeples remembered all the words. There were murals
Speaker 2: half hidden under centuries of whitewash, awkward frescoes on the
Speaker 2: council walls, showing figures with too many or not enough shadows,
Speaker 2: which as a boy I took as the whimsy of
Speaker 2: long dead artists. No priest, historian, or even Daniel's predecessor
Speaker 2: as mayor had ever bothered to explain them. It was
Speaker 2: the kind of local riddle we wore like a second coat,
Speaker 2: present unremarked. Since retiring, I'd kept my rituals small, a
Speaker 2: morning walk, the cross word letters from a grand daughter
Speaker 2: too far away, my knees ached after climes. But the
Speaker 2: familiar click of my steps on these stones reminded me
Speaker 2: that I belonged, if not to the present, then at
Speaker 2: least to the continuity memory Afford's old postmen. Still, this
Speaker 2: visit felt different. Maybe places change when you stop serving them,
Speaker 2: or maybe you simply lose the illusion that your every
Speaker 2: nod and wave holds the village in steady orbit. Each
Speaker 2: corner echoed a strange sameness, and yet behind it pulsed
Speaker 2: a subtle difference. Glances held a fraction of a second
Speaker 2: too long, a rhythm to the crowd's movement I couldn't define.
Speaker 2: Last night, after the reunion dinner, I'd caught myself wondering
Speaker 2: whether it was the town that had shifted in my absence,
Speaker 2: or if, in retiring, I'd finally turned to face something
Speaker 2: everyone else had learned to look past. It wasn't just
Speaker 2: the misbehaving shadows cast by the afternoon sun. It was
Speaker 2: how nobody seemed to question what went unseen on the edges,
Speaker 2: How laughter flickered between groups with a knowing under note,
Speaker 2: How Daniel's handshake felt weighted with an extra, unspoken meaning.
Speaker 2: I found myself drifting into old habits, scanning faces for subtleties,
Speaker 2: ears pricked for the tone that indicated delight or worry,
Speaker 2: or something somewhere between. The shadows along the canal, far
Speaker 2: from fading with evening, seemed to darken, behaving as if
Speaker 2: the sun existed on a plane of its own invention.
Speaker 2: The next morning, I did what any creature of habit
Speaker 2: would I strolled down to Missus Papadacci's bakery, lured by
Speaker 2: the mingled scent of yeast and cinnamon. The bell above
Speaker 2: the door had the same wheezing rattle, but inside the
Speaker 2: place thrummed with more energy than I remembered. A pair
Speaker 2: of old men fussed over a chessboard by the window.
Speaker 2: A trio of children darted in and out, leaving footprints
Speaker 2: of flower on the mat. Missus Papadaki's herself emerged, cheeks
Speaker 2: flushed apron bearing testament to another pre dawned siege against
Speaker 2: batter fresh from the oven. Darling, you must take two,
Speaker 2: she pressed a tart into my hand. Before I could protest.
Speaker 2: I started to thank her, but my words caught the way.
Speaker 2: Sunlight from the side window cut across the floor. Her
Speaker 2: shadow should have landed somewhere between the till and the
Speaker 2: back door, but instead it spilled beneath the counter, ragged
Speaker 2: at the fingers, slanting sharp and separate from her form.
Speaker 2: Each time she turned, the ligature between her body and
Speaker 2: that darkness shifted, stretching thin, then rebounding, almost like a
Speaker 2: looped thread. As she moved in her habitual busy way.
Speaker 2: A delivery boy sweat beading on his brow, rushed in
Speaker 2: arms full of paper sacks. When he stepped into the
Speaker 2: bright wedge of sunlight near the door. For an instant,
Speaker 2: two shadows flared at his feet, One crisp, almost exaggerated,
Speaker 2: mimicking his every move, Another lighter and delayed, seemed to
Speaker 2: trail behind his shoe. He blinked, delivered the packages to
Speaker 2: the counter, and with a small laugh, disappeared into the kitchen.
Speaker 2: Apparently unbothered. I hesitated, then, leaning in so only she
Speaker 2: could hear murmured, have you ever noticed the way the
Speaker 2: light plays tricks with our shadows in here? She grinned,
Speaker 2: wiping her brow. Now, now don't go borrowing trouble. Her
Speaker 2: eyes danced with amusement, But in their depths I caught
Speaker 2: the briefest flicker of recognition. Some things here move at
Speaker 2: their own pace. Come eat before it cools and loses
Speaker 2: all charm. Trying not to stare, I lingered over my
Speaker 2: tart and coffee. The scene played on as customers entered
Speaker 2: and left. Their shadows twisted and swayed in cure aus synchrony.
Speaker 2: Sometimes two converged at the door, overlapping for a blink
Speaker 2: before reorganizing themselves on the tiles. Walking back into the sunlight,
Speaker 2: unease gave way to a sharpening interest. Shadows weren't meant
Speaker 2: to behave like this, ruled by angles, by physics, by
Speaker 2: the indifferent sun. Yet I saw here a choreography, not random,
Speaker 2: but as though every one else had memorized steps I'd
Speaker 2: never learned. Had the town always been like this? Had
Speaker 2: years of routine blinded me before, or had something subtle
Speaker 2: transformed during my absence? I tried to recall old days
Speaker 2: when I delivered the wedding invitations to the cafe, when
Speaker 2: I'd watched Missus Papadaki's teach her niece to need doe
Speaker 2: on the back steps. Had their shadows ever tangled, ever
Speaker 2: delayed their matching walk across the stones? If such things
Speaker 2: had passed beneath my gaze before I had filed them
Speaker 2: under the heading of inconsequential oddities. Now I began to
Speaker 2: wonder if half the customs undergirding them this place had
Speaker 2: always been in plain view, unregistered, until all at once
Speaker 2: they demanded to be seen That afternoon. My curiosity, which
Speaker 2: often propelled me through rain and sleet when a letter
Speaker 2: was due sent me into the pulsing central square. The
Speaker 2: air shimmered in that particular valley way where heat collects
Speaker 2: between buildings and compels ducks. To make for the shade,
Speaker 2: I took a seat near the reflecting pool, pretended to
Speaker 2: fish a note book from my breast pocket. Habits lingered,
Speaker 2: and watched as the market crowd headed and reconfigured. What
Speaker 2: I saw was more intentional, more intricate than any trick
Speaker 2: of sunlight or eye fatigue. A circle of friends, mostly
Speaker 2: my age, clad in navy cardigans and loose slacks, stood
Speaker 2: talking as each swapped places. They adjusted their steps delicately,
Speaker 2: as if performing a practiced, unseen dance. I watched as
Speaker 2: one man cane tapping, carefully inserted himself into a shaft
Speaker 2: of light, at which point his shadow peeled off and
Speaker 2: joined another's a temporary duet on the paving stones. A
Speaker 2: woman in the circle took three deliberate steps, letting her
Speaker 2: cross a boundary of light. Her shadow melded with another's,
Speaker 2: then retreated, as if agreeing to a pre arranged contract.
Speaker 2: In a patch of shade beneath an awning, four elderly
Speaker 2: card players were deep in a game. Backs hunched cards
Speaker 2: fanned wide movements, deliberate as each hand was dealt. I
Speaker 2: noticed their shadows below the awning did not so much
Speaker 2: duplicate their motions as entangled together. Dark loops under the
Speaker 2: table compounded and flickered each time a card touched the felt. Then,
Speaker 2: at the end of a round, untied themselves, flowing away
Speaker 2: from chair legs and out onto the open stones. There
Speaker 2: was no confusion, no disruption, just the silent, smooth operation
Speaker 2: of some communal understanding. Galvanized, I decided to experiment. I
Speaker 2: stepped boldly into the light. My shadow fell at my feet,
Speaker 2: bending against the base of an iron lamp post. I hopped,
Speaker 2: spun on my heel, shifted left, then right. My shadow followed,
Speaker 2: obeying every movement with textbook punctuality. I tried again, glancing
Speaker 2: secretly to see if anyone watched ordinary as anything. No delay,
Speaker 2: no duplication. I began fleetingly to suspect I was losing
Speaker 2: my grip. Then Daniel arrived, tie askew and jacket over
Speaker 2: his arm. You've chosen the prime spot, he declared, sitting
Speaker 2: beside me, letting out a grunt, as though settling on
Speaker 2: to an invisible throne. He nodded at the growing cue outside.
Speaker 2: The bakery place is buzzing since you showed up, they say.
Speaker 2: The postman's return stirs the flower. You know, we fell
Speaker 2: into talk of old days. But as he gestured, pointing
Speaker 2: across the street at the tailor's dog chasing its own tail,
Speaker 2: I felt with increasing certainty that something wasn't right about
Speaker 2: the shape that followed him. Daniel's shadow slanted off at
Speaker 2: a perfect right angle to his shoulder, fall not at
Speaker 2: his feet, but along the thick bramble of a nearby
Speaker 2: Forsythia bush. When he laughed, its arms fluttered on an
Speaker 2: entirely separate rhythm, as if laughing at a different punchline.
Speaker 2: I resolved to let nothing pass me. By pulling out
Speaker 2: an old pad, I began sketching what I saw, jotting
Speaker 2: observations and diagrams in the margins. I watched a mother
Speaker 2: and child at play, dancing in and out of dappled
Speaker 2: sunlight from the plane trees between benches. They repeated a pattern,
Speaker 2: the mother stepping forward, the child skipping sideways, both pausing
Speaker 2: then circling. Finally, the child's shadow grew enormous, overtaking her
Speaker 2: by several feet, while the mothers receded, shrunken as a
Speaker 2: puddle after the rain. The mother smiled rily, as if
Speaker 2: acknowledging a secret joke. I tried to capture a particularly
Speaker 2: striking shadow exchange in a photograph on my phone. I
Speaker 2: lined up a pair of siblings as their silhouettes merged
Speaker 2: and stretched, snapped four quick shots each time I checked
Speaker 2: the images. However, there was result was incomprehensible blurred edges
Speaker 2: where figures should be crisp, a faint doubling that recalled
Speaker 2: both multiple exposure photographs and those old de gerotype plates
Speaker 2: where everyone's head looked slightly misplaced. The sense of motion
Speaker 2: persisted even in the still I wandered memories eddying. Hadn't
Speaker 2: the mosaic in the council Hall always depicted people with mismatched,
Speaker 2: wandering shadows. I had always assumed it artistic license, the
Speaker 2: whim of a painter bored by strict symmetry. In the library,
Speaker 2: the late afternoon sun shone through high windows, bathing the
Speaker 2: reading room in gold. Miriam, in her sensible shoes, moved
Speaker 2: between shelves, sunlight stippling her cardigan. Her shadow split as
Speaker 2: she stepped into a sunbeam reforming on the wall behind her.
Speaker 2: As her fingers reached for a book. It paused there
Speaker 2: as if anticipating the motion, a half second ahead of her,
Speaker 2: then snapped back into alignment the moment she turned away.
Speaker 2: Across the stacks, children stuck waiting for their parents began
Speaker 2: a hopping game instead of tag. They leapt over one
Speaker 2: another's shadows, shrieking with laughter when they stole a piece,
Speaker 2: bounding back over the dark shapes as if gathering points
Speaker 2: in a game whose rules only they understood. Everywhere, it
Speaker 2: seemed people moved through their day while shadows intertwined in
Speaker 2: a ritualized, casual choreography, a language I had never learned
Speaker 2: to speak. Observing, I realized that what I was witnessing
Speaker 2: wove together ordinary action and background anomaly so seamlessly it
Speaker 2: didn't matter if you noticed. The dance continued invisible but
Speaker 2: enacted nonetheless. As dusk deepened, I poured coffee into chipped
Speaker 2: china and sat across from Daniel, taking care with my words.
Speaker 2: Have you ever paid attention? I started to how people's
Speaker 2: shadows move in this town. Theirs a peculiarity to them,
Speaker 2: as though things don't quite add up. Daniel regarded me
Speaker 2: with the same squint he'd given rain clouds and election
Speaker 2: results since we were boys. Then a grin crinkled his face.
Speaker 2: You always did pay closer attention than the rest of us.
Speaker 2: Sometimes in a place like this, what you see is
Speaker 2: what we intend you to see. There was an ambiguity
Speaker 2: in his tone that sharpened my focus. Means you're all
Speaker 2: in on it. He just sipped his coffee, considering some things,
Speaker 2: if named out loud, lose their power or gain it.
Speaker 2: We've always liked the mysteries to be lived more than explained.
Speaker 2: It wasn't dismissal, nor was it confession, more like handing
Speaker 2: me the first word of a poem and leaving the
Speaker 2: rest to memory. Later, in the library's mottled light, I mentioned, casually,
Speaker 2: as if quoting a passing line from a book, to
Speaker 2: Miriam what I'd seen the children playing. She straightened, a
Speaker 2: glance flickering along the spines behind me. She replied, almost absently,
Speaker 2: A shadow shared is a burden halved. That's what my
Speaker 2: grandmother used to say. Then she returned her eyes to
Speaker 2: her reading pile, offering no further explanation. The pieces shifted
Speaker 2: the more I pressed the more I saw that this
Speaker 2: was not some optical phenomenon, nor a grand deception played
Speaker 2: for the tourist's benefit. There was intention here, a tradition,
Speaker 2: perhaps a ritual, woven so deeply that even those who
Speaker 2: practiced it need not speak it aloud. Memory flashed raised
Speaker 2: eyebrows when neighbors parted after an argument, hands clasped, and
Speaker 2: shadows reuniting before they left the square. It was not random,
Speaker 2: and it was never discussed directly. What looked like quirk
Speaker 2: was in fact custom. If this was a fiction, it
Speaker 2: was the most elaborate one I'd ever seen, a story
Speaker 2: so rich even its players forgot where the script began.
Speaker 2: I realized that the choreography of shadows revealed itself only
Speaker 2: to those who, by circumstance or curiosity, chose to truly see.
Speaker 2: I could not readest with half answers. On a sunlit
Speaker 2: morning that sparkled off the river, I set off for
Speaker 2: the Old Town Hall, a square building with flaking blue paint,
Speaker 2: forever half way between restoration and collapse. The municipal murals,
Speaker 2: long ignored in favor of newer campaign posters, now beckoned
Speaker 2: like half buried clues. The moment I entered, I saw
Speaker 2: them anew. The largest mural lay above the main door.
Speaker 2: At its center, a ring of townspeople, hand in hand,
Speaker 2: tracked a spiral path, each painted figure accompanied not by
Speaker 2: their own shadow, but by a silhouette clearly belonging to
Speaker 2: someone on their opposite side. The effect was disorienting. A
Speaker 2: child silhouette trailing behind an elderly man, A pair of
Speaker 2: women depicted in the same stance, but their shadows diverging wildly,
Speaker 2: one stretching into what might have been dawn, the other
Speaker 2: curling at her feet as dusk. Below a trove of
Speaker 2: faded symbols, a stylized sunburn ringed by figures their arms interlocked,
Speaker 2: each depicted with contrasting shadows, small for the tall, large
Speaker 2: for the frail, two for the grieving. For the first time,
Speaker 2: I searched for meaning, not just color. An array of
Speaker 2: hands extended across boundaries where the mural's lighting was inconsistent,
Speaker 2: as if the artist had deliberately painted time of day
Speaker 2: confusion into the scene. In the dim office, I dug
Speaker 2: through the parish archives, dust collecting on my sleeves. The
Speaker 2: oldest records were handwritten in a looping script that hovered
Speaker 2: between clarity and code. I found a line about a
Speaker 2: wedding on the feast of Saint Elena. Tomas carried the
Speaker 2: baker's burden. Another the twins shared dawn and dusk alike.
Speaker 2: Elsewhere a side note evidently a joke mare hemmings growing
Speaker 2: taller by the shadow each year. Maybe he's collecting them
Speaker 2: for winter. The documents blurred the boundary between ceremony and routine.
Speaker 2: On my way back, I stopped for a late lunch.
Speaker 2: Missus Papadaki's leek on her elbows, eyes bright. My grandmother
Speaker 2: used to tell stories, you know, about shadows growing longer.
Speaker 2: When my uncle left for the war, my grandfather carried
Speaker 2: his mother es until she returned from hospital. When neighbors quarreled,
Speaker 2: they would trade darknesses, a step here, a step there,
Speaker 2: to mark forgiveness. She folded a napkin precisely, her voice light,
Speaker 2: mostly old talk meant for children. But kindness hides in
Speaker 2: small things. Yes, the mural, the records, the stories, They
Speaker 2: knitted together into a tapestry, at once playful and grave.
Speaker 2: What I'd seen with my eyes was not some isolated incident,
Speaker 2: nor a prank of clever light or communal whimsy. The
Speaker 2: custom ran deep, branching through marriages, losses, reconciliations, invisible yet
Speaker 2: always deliberately present. If once I'd believed it was all folklore,
Speaker 2: this day's discoveries unraveled that certainty. I began to wonder
Speaker 2: what precisely was being traded in shadow. Was it memory, obligation,
Speaker 2: kinship care? It was all clearly metaphor, and yet not.
Speaker 2: The sense that there might be more lingered thick as
Speaker 2: the smell of fresh bread, both comfort and challenge. That evening,
Speaker 2: with the last of the sun gilding the canal, I
Speaker 2: committed myself to more than observation. Along the tow path
Speaker 2: near the narrowest bridge townsfolk gathered in the unhurried, purposeful
Speaker 2: way of people who have marked out these rituals since
Speaker 2: before the invention of maps. I stood at the edge
Speaker 2: of the group, heart thumping, with a nervous energy that
Speaker 2: felt out of place among so many old friends. I
Speaker 2: had spent my career delivering things, a letter, a word
Speaker 2: comfort to the housebound shadows, though weren't part of the
Speaker 2: postal code. Nobody spoke, nobody directed. They drifted in pears
Speaker 2: and trios, sometimes pausing to let beams of light fall
Speaker 2: just so. Steps subtly synchronizing, I edged closer to Daniel,
Speaker 2: who wore a smile, kept tense by some private amusement.
Speaker 2: He raised an eyebrow as if inviting me to join
Speaker 2: or decline at will. Mimicking what I had so often witnessed,
Speaker 2: I slowed my step to linger just behind him, waited
Speaker 2: for the angle of sunlight to brush across our shoes.
Speaker 2: I timed my movement with his, a half step, a
Speaker 2: weight shift, a matching pause, Whether through practice or chance,
Speaker 2: Our shadows lapped over one another, then parted, veering off
Speaker 2: and recombining with those of others. As the crowd shuffled onward,
Speaker 2: there was a peculiar awareness, a prickle at the very
Speaker 2: back of consciousness, as if something had become both lighter
Speaker 2: and more complicated in the space around me. Nothing physical shifted,
Speaker 2: yet I had the distinct impression of having exchanged something
Speaker 2: invisible yet real, a warmth glancing off the edge of
Speaker 2: sadness and familiarity. Daniel caught my eye. See not so
Speaker 2: hard once you know how to look. Most people never
Speaker 2: worry what the sun is up to until a shadow
Speaker 2: liners somewhere it shouldn't. We walked together in companionable silence,
Speaker 2: not needing to fill the quiet. As I looked down
Speaker 2: at the street, I saw now that my shadow stretched
Speaker 2: farther than usual, and as I turned, it rippled, doubled
Speaker 2: along the cobblestones in an echo I might once have
Speaker 2: dismissed as simple trickery. Still, the question pressed, if a
Speaker 2: shadow was a burden, or a memory or a bond,
Speaker 2: what exactly had I just borrowed? And equally, what peace
Speaker 2: of myself had I left for some one else to carry?
Speaker 2: Walking home, the dusk softening every edge, I could not
Speaker 2: shake the feeling that I had stepped not just across
Speaker 2: stone or into sunlight, but from observer to participant. The town,
Speaker 2: it seemed, invited you only so far before demanding you
Speaker 2: stop asking whether what you see can be explained, and
Speaker 2: finally consider what it means. With the night cooling around
Speaker 2: my window, I realized my curiosity had only deepened, not
Speaker 2: just about what or how, but why. What was the logic,
Speaker 2: the story, the underlying thread that held this shadow braiding
Speaker 2: custom intact for so many generations. Was it ritual faith,
Speaker 2: a complicated kindness, or something else? Entirely. For the first time,
Speaker 2: I found myself less interested in answers than in the
Speaker 2: mysteries shape itself. If sleep came to me that night,
Speaker 2: it settled lightly, like a wisp of fog that doesn't
Speaker 2: quite reach the stones. Instead, I found myself sifting the
Speaker 2: memories of the day, lining them up on my mind's shelf,
Speaker 2: beside a thousand posted letters, and murmured good mornings. My
Speaker 2: feet ached, but the sensation in my chest was something new,
Speaker 2: a mixture of elation and slight unease, as though I
Speaker 2: had said yes to a wager before understanding the rules.
Speaker 2: The window lay open to the night air, carrying in
Speaker 2: the slow song of river insects, and somewhere laughter echoing
Speaker 2: upriver from the late cafe trade. It struck me with
Speaker 2: a pleasant thrill that curiosity was no longer a distance
Speaker 2: observer's indulgence, but a living current. I had been drawn into,
Speaker 2: willing or not. In the morning, the world felt just
Speaker 2: perceptibly heavier and lighter, the way it does after a
Speaker 2: funeral or a berth, when you look out your kitchen
Speaker 2: window and think all at once both nothing has changed
Speaker 2: and everything has. I ate my toast, though my appetite
Speaker 2: seemed not quite my own, and peered at the sunlight
Speaker 2: as it crawled across my little table. The shadows of
Speaker 2: salt and pepper shakers leaned at polite, sensible angles. If
Speaker 2: it was true, as I now suspected, that some things
Speaker 2: only revealed themselves when a certain door had been crossed,
Speaker 2: I wondered if my new vantage would show me more
Speaker 2: or simply invite more questions. I was still pondering this
Speaker 2: as I strolled the short distance to the bakery. There
Speaker 2: was a comfort in the routineness. But now I found
Speaker 2: myself tuned to another frequency, one part watcher, one part accomplice.
Speaker 2: Missus Papadaki's was already delivering tart slices to pair of workmen.
Speaker 2: She met my eye with an openness she hadn't shown yesterday,
Speaker 2: as if we shared a new wordless pact some mornings,
Speaker 2: she said, before I'd even placed an order. I miss
Speaker 2: my sister most, especially when my shadows a little too
Speaker 2: long for comfort. She patted my hand, and though I
Speaker 2: tried to read her expression, it resisted translation equal parts
Speaker 2: wistful and matter of fact. There was no need to
Speaker 2: hunt for peculiarities in the sunlight that morning. Instead, I
Speaker 2: looked for cues in the voices and gestures, the easy
Speaker 2: outside joke cadence of regulars, the nods exchanged by people
Speaker 2: who de overlapped each other's chores and secrets for decades.
Speaker 2: I noticed a subtle shift in mood whenever someone's shadow
Speaker 2: stretched unexpectedly long, or when two people briefly and perhaps
Speaker 2: intentionally aligned their steps so that the darkness at their
Speaker 2: feet expanded or contracted, drawing courage from the previous evening
Speaker 2: and a kind of postman's directness I couldn't entire highly shake.
Speaker 2: I paid a visit to Fritz, tucked away in his
Speaker 2: ticking loud shop. The clocks counted out every shadow on
Speaker 2: the wall, and Fritz, setting aside a broken carriage wheel
Speaker 2: with a precision that made me oddly nervous, regarded me
Speaker 2: with the look of a man who's watched thousands of
Speaker 2: faces registered the hour and never once inquired how the
Speaker 2: gears work. I'm trying to understand, I said, quietly, though,
Speaker 2: Well how to put it? Shadow loans? Are they only
Speaker 2: for festival days or do you do people use them
Speaker 2: in other ways? He smiled, the slow smile of a
Speaker 2: craftsman contemplating a watch he didn't build but has wound
Speaker 2: a hundred times. There are rules, but they bend. If
Speaker 2: someone is ill, or frightened, or leaving on a journey,
Speaker 2: often a friend will walk with them in the morning,
Speaker 2: share a coffee by the window, just long enough, perhaps
Speaker 2: to lighten the step. If forgiveness is needed, two might
Speaker 2: exchange a glance in the right slice of sunlight. Or
Speaker 2: at times it happens by mistake and must be sorted
Speaker 2: out later, quietly, like mismatched buttons returned to the right coat,
Speaker 2: he winked, adding, clocks are sturdy, you see, shadows not
Speaker 2: so much. Ours need a little help carrying all that
Speaker 2: time around. I left the shop with the impression that
Speaker 2: even if I could summon every townsperson and interrogate them
Speaker 2: until the sun set, I'd end up with a thousand explanations,
Speaker 2: each elbowing the others aside. Yet, on the walk back
Speaker 2: through Chapel Lane, something in my posture had shifted. I
Speaker 2: focused less on light and angles and more on the
Speaker 2: orchestration of mood. A mother hurried past me, a pale
Speaker 2: bundle cradled in her lap, her shadow joined by another
Speaker 2: broader one trailed in her wake. A young couple standing
Speaker 2: by the florist's stall seemed to share a single, vivid
Speaker 2: shadow thrown across the paving in a silhouette of interlocked hands.
Speaker 2: Another woman, hunched with age, walked alone, but her shadow
Speaker 2: flickered stronger for a few steps, then faded, as if
Speaker 2: picked up and set down by unseen companions. The pattern
Speaker 2: grew clear. In this town. The shadow was not simply
Speaker 2: a function of light, but a public ledger of ties, grief, celebration, dependence,
Speaker 2: or forgiveness, all mapped in real time. I began to
Speaker 2: see it as a kind of mnemonic, a visual announcement
Speaker 2: of belonging here. Sorrow was not carried alone unless you insisted. Here,
Speaker 2: love and loss both left marks on the ground you walked.
Speaker 2: The thought humbled me and excited me in equal measure.
Speaker 2: My years as postmen had been spent carrying declarations and
Speaker 2: demands from house to house, often obliquely involved in the
Speaker 2: emotional currents of others. But this was a different idea,
Speaker 2: a way of living where burdens, once invisible, could be
Speaker 2: seen and even shared in fleeting, tangible ways. Later in
Speaker 2: the day, I found myself drawn back to the library, Miriam,
Speaker 2: gently re arranging the returned books and consulting a handwritten list,
Speaker 2: approached with my usual secuito style. You wouldn't happen to
Speaker 2: have any well scientific books or town records on certain local,
Speaker 2: shall we say, traditions, she grinned, looking for a manual
Speaker 2: on shadow mending. Are you you might have better luck
Speaker 2: in the parish's old guest books. My grandfather claimed they
Speaker 2: kept tallies once of shadows borrowed and lent debts settled
Speaker 2: by sunlight instead of coin. Her tone was neither dismissive
Speaker 2: nor confiding, more like she was passing me a map
Speaker 2: with half the roads erased, trusting me to fill in
Speaker 2: the rest. I thanked her and retreated to the archives,
Speaker 2: where the air tasted of old glue and undertold stories.
Speaker 2: Leafing through the ledges, I found little by way of
Speaker 2: explicit instruction. Rather, there were stories scrawled out in margins
Speaker 2: or footnotes of visitors whose shadows clung stubbornly to their heels,
Speaker 2: refusing to participate in the local pattern. Some, it was said,
Speaker 2: never managed to share or receive a shadow here at all,
Speaker 2: No matter how much time they spent among us, their
Speaker 2: light fell ordinary, their burdens unremarked. Curious, I wandered back
Speaker 2: to the square as crowds built for the daily market. Newcomers,
Speaker 2: tourists with cameras dangling, their skin pinked by the unfamiliar sun,
Speaker 2: roamed freely. Their shadows obeyed the Sun's laws with unwavering
Speaker 2: loyalty behind beside, wherever logic and latitude demanded. No confluence
Speaker 2: of gestures, no matter how closely they stepped or played,
Speaker 2: could tempt one shadow to merge with another. The townspeople meanwhile,
Speaker 2: continued their quiet ballets in the corners of sunlight, swapping, lending,
Speaker 2: and shading as the rhythm demanded. It was then that
Speaker 2: I began to suspect the custom phenomenon tradition, whatever it was,
Speaker 2: only adhered to those steeped in the fabric of the town,
Speaker 2: in its memory and ritual. Outsiders could observe but not participate.
Speaker 2: Was it an idiosyncratic are illusion grown so elaborate that
Speaker 2: it became tangible to those who believed, or some deeper
Speaker 2: arrangement of perception reality overlooked. It occurred to me that
Speaker 2: children learned the tradition not in lessons, but through games
Speaker 2: and mimicry that the more one tried to press for
Speaker 2: rules and explanations, the more the etiquette wriggled away, leaving
Speaker 2: only a story and a half smile. Still, I was
Speaker 2: not content to leave the matter at mystery. That evening,
Speaker 2: I returned to Fritz, my own procedural bent, now fully roused.
Speaker 2: I want to try something deliberate. I told him, not
Speaker 2: just stumble into another's pattern or catch the wrong moment.
Speaker 2: He nodded solemnly, as if this were the most reasonable
Speaker 2: request a man could make. We positioned ourselves at the
Speaker 2: threshold of the shop, where the morning sun painted two
Speaker 2: clear shapes on the pavement. Fritz, ever, the craftsmen counted
Speaker 2: our steps one too. Now we synchronized a movement, careful
Speaker 2: not to let either shadow fully procede or lag behind.
Speaker 2: At the instant our darknesses overlapped. I felt not a jolt, exactly,
Speaker 2: but a faint, weightless dizziness, like standing too quickly after
Speaker 2: a long watch. Odd, isn't it, Fritz mused, eyes bright
Speaker 2: with a grown man's version of childhood glee. I always thought,
Speaker 2: if it did nothing else, it made the day go
Speaker 2: softer on the bones. He shrugged, then joked, let me
Speaker 2: know if my knees start hurting more than usual, maybe
Speaker 2: I borrowed yours while we were at it. Later I
Speaker 2: tried another swap less formal with Miriam. We sat shoulders
Speaker 2: just touching under an awning, watching our shadows drift across
Speaker 2: the tiles behind us. For a moment, they fused indivisible.
Speaker 2: She seemed to sigh, and then delicate as the opening
Speaker 2: of a flower. The shadows parted and retreated. Feels clearer,
Speaker 2: doesn't it, she said, though whether she meant the light
Speaker 2: or her chest, I couldn't tell. I spent the day
Speaker 2: tuned to my own mood, cataloging changes as I would
Speaker 2: track weather before a holiday. Was I more at ease?
Speaker 2: I recalled incidents more sharply. Burdens and memories seemed to
Speaker 2: rest at a further distance, not vanished, but blunted, their
Speaker 2: edges buffered. That afternoon, I met Daniel on the bridge,
Speaker 2: fishing rod in hand, tracing lazy circles in the water.
Speaker 2: Emboldened by our string of cryptic conversations, I decided to ask, outright,
Speaker 2: have you carried another's shadow? Is that how it works
Speaker 2: over time or just for the day? He stared at
Speaker 2: the water. When my grandfather died, I stood in the
Speaker 2: sun outside his house, and well, that day my shadow lengthened.
Speaker 2: My mother said, it meant I carried what he left,
Speaker 2: his patient's stubbornness, his anger at injustice. Sometimes on hard days,
Speaker 2: it's as if he's the part that lingers behind, reminding
Speaker 2: me what only he could know. We stood in silence,
Speaker 2: rod tip dipping. Occasionally as the river inched forward. He
Speaker 2: handed me the line, try it. You'll feel how heavy
Speaker 2: it can be, And yet how right later still I
Speaker 2: combed through the parish records, noting that in times of trial,
Speaker 2: years of flood or mourning or war, the number of
Speaker 2: shadow exchanges described spiked records spoke in puetic code. Twenty
Speaker 2: hands grasped at sunset, twenty burdens halved when the water rose,
Speaker 2: the shadows mingled by the key until help arrived. It
Speaker 2: seemed intervention was not just permitted, but expected and offered,
Speaker 2: as naturally as bread is shared after a funeral. Was
Speaker 2: it simply belief extended so totally that perception changed. Was
Speaker 2: the lighting in this valley bent to human need? Shaped
Speaker 2: by the century's long repetition of a quietly magical narrative,
Speaker 2: or did the phenomenon lie wholly in the intertwining of
Speaker 2: collective longing and unspoken packed The questions multiplied, and yet
Speaker 2: with each I felt the heart of the matter drawing nearer.
Speaker 2: I resolved to test an unspoken hypothesis that what made
Speaker 2: this tradition possible was less a light waves and sun
Speaker 2: angles and everything to do with participation, a lived belief,
Speaker 2: rendering the intangible visible for those who would see. Each
Speaker 2: person lent a fraction of certainty. The whole became a system,
Speaker 2: reinforced in gestures, nudges, and communal memory. The following morning,
Speaker 2: market day, I rose before sunrise and joined the earliest
Speaker 2: rises at the bakery. Missus Papadakis's uncle, a brittle, white
Speaker 2: haired man whose eyes flickered with a survivor's humor, presided
Speaker 2: over a tiny table. Around him, gathered the oldest faces
Speaker 2: in town, the choir matron, the bellringer Fritz, and a
Speaker 2: woman I recognized only from seeing her sweep her steps
Speaker 2: at dawn. They talked not of shadows, but of marriages
Speaker 2: of the year. The canal froze hard enough for a
Speaker 2: skating race of the neighbour whose apple tart invariably won
Speaker 2: the harvest fair. I waited for a natural pause, then
Speaker 2: let my questions slip in sideways. All these stories, what
Speaker 2: makes them so long lived? Why does the shadow trade
Speaker 2: endure when so many other customs have faded? The old man,
Speaker 2: hands folded, replied, where do you carry the things you
Speaker 2: cannot put down? Grief, forgiveness, old shame, the ache of
Speaker 2: an absent sibling. You can bottle them up, let them
Speaker 2: rot you from the inside, or you can let some
Speaker 2: one else bear it, if only for an hour, until
Speaker 2: you are stronger again. He passed me a roll. We
Speaker 2: are all leaking. You see shadows, Just make it visible.
Speaker 2: The others echoed with murmurs of assent, their voices stitched
Speaker 2: with the certainty of those who have weathered more seasons
Speaker 2: than they care to count. Burdens lighter for the telling
Speaker 2: or the sharing, said the bell ringer, face lit from
Speaker 2: within by something like faith. For the first time, I
Speaker 2: sense the core of the tradition. The mechanics, whether they
Speaker 2: obeyed physics or psychology, didn't matter half as much as
Speaker 2: the fact of it. This was compassion made visible, a
Speaker 2: grammar for kindness, so every day, so ally that it
Speaker 2: slipped beneath the notice of visitors and newcomers alike. That afternoon,
Speaker 2: before the festival began, I wandered down to the river bank.
Speaker 2: The lanterns hung from the trees like promises waiting to
Speaker 2: be spoken. The air buzzed with five generations of anticipation,
Speaker 2: everyone in their best shirts and shoes, balancing cake plates
Speaker 2: and bowls of pale wine. At dusk, near the footbridge,
Speaker 2: a moment unfolded so gently I might have missed it
Speaker 2: had I not been looking. A widow alone for the
Speaker 2: first parade in decades stood at the edge of the procession.
Speaker 2: Her friend, a woman I recalled from the market, always
Speaker 2: laughing at her own jokes, sidled beside her without a word.
Speaker 2: They shared a glance, then, with perfect timing, stepped together
Speaker 2: into the largest puddle of golden light remaining on the cobblestones.
Speaker 2: Their shadows, one slumped and narrow, one broad and upright,
Speaker 2: fused for a few heartbeats, then untangled as the light
Speaker 2: moved behind a clad no bow, no applause, just a
Speaker 2: soft laugh and a squeeze of hands. Yet I saw
Speaker 2: it clearly. The shadow for that moment carried a heavier
Speaker 2: ache and then a little less. In the space of seconds,
Speaker 2: private pain and comfort traded places witnessed by those inclined
Speaker 2: to know around them. Dozens more drifted through similar rituals.
Speaker 2: A word, a step, a presence in the right light
Speaker 2: that passed without name or ceremony. The city's invisible net
Speaker 2: work revealed itself, not through grand gestures, but in the
Speaker 2: tiniest adjustments of posture and path watching. I felt a
Speaker 2: pressure at my chest soften and expand, as if a
Speaker 2: secret I'd carried for years was being gently aired out
Speaker 2: by a stranger who required no explanation. Some part of
Speaker 2: me changed imperceptibly, a new resonance in the memories I carried,
Speaker 2: an extra weight and an extra buoyancy both. I knew now,
Speaker 2: with a clarity as bright as sunlight on river Waiter,
Speaker 2: that the shadow trade was the hidden language of self
Speaker 2: forgiveness and communal holding. Grief was never solo here, nor
Speaker 2: was the day's burden left unshared. Even joy found companions.
Speaker 2: Blooms doubled in the near invisible record, each person left
Speaker 2: behind as they moved. The tradition did not insist on understanding,
Speaker 2: only participation, only willingness to let yourself be seen and
Speaker 2: at times carried. When the parade of boats drifted by, lanterns,
Speaker 2: reflecting like stars that had lowered themselves into the canal.
Speaker 2: For one night only, I let myself walk alongside friends
Speaker 2: and strangers, my shadows stretching, mingling, fading in and out
Speaker 2: of alignment. It occurred to me, not unhappily, that I
Speaker 2: would leave this place changed in some small way, a
Speaker 2: man carrying his own and other's stories, stitched together by
Speaker 2: the shared darkness that marked us as kin. As the
Speaker 2: festival dwindled and the river's hush returned to fill the void,
Speaker 2: I wandered the long way home, my steps echoed on
Speaker 2: the stones. My shadow, strange and doubled at the edges,
Speaker 2: accompanied me faithfully, then lagged. Then, just before my door
Speaker 2: caught up again, as if uncertain it wished to leave
Speaker 2: the square behind. In the quiet that followed, I turned
Speaker 2: the day over and over like a treasured letter, uncertain
Speaker 2: where to file it, but unwilling to set it aside.
Speaker 2: The canal light was blue now, the distant chatter gone.
Speaker 2: I thought, if even memory, loss, gratitude, or weariness can
Speaker 2: be shouldered, divided, doubled, returned at need, what would life
Speaker 2: look like elsewhere if only we trusted such arrangements to hold?
Speaker 2: Was all of this physics, was its shared suggestion, bred
Speaker 2: so deeply it shaped what the villagers saw and felt
Speaker 2: or had. The centuries of ritual gently and quietly made
Speaker 2: possible the impossible. Perhaps the question didn't need an answer.
Speaker 2: I made a last round along the canal, nodding at
Speaker 2: the few still awake. My shadow, crumpled and elongated by
Speaker 2: village lamps, was not precisely my own any longer, and
Speaker 2: I smiled at the idea that it might serve as marker,
Speaker 2: signature or signpost for those who knew how to read.
Speaker 2: The next morning arrived with a suddenness. I recented a
Speaker 2: last breakfast of tart and boiled eggs. Old friends clustered
Speaker 2: for one more cup. I hugged missus Pappadaki's, who pressed
Speaker 2: a cluster of rolls on me. Carry these with you,
Speaker 2: and let the shadows at your next stop know we
Speaker 2: send our regards. She teased her eyes, damp but determined.
Speaker 2: Daniel gripped my shoulder, eyes twinkling, keep her look out.
Speaker 2: The Sun's more complicated than it seems, you know. I
Speaker 2: wheeled my small suit case down to the station, heart
Speaker 2: oddly full. At the platform, I took a seat in
Speaker 2: the angled sunlight, waiting for the train. All along the track,
Speaker 2: the air shimmered and buzzed with the promise of a
Speaker 2: hundred potential good byes. I glanced down, and there, drawn
Speaker 2: long and faint from the angle of the sun, my
Speaker 2: shadow flickered, elongated and split, one side sharp, the other
Speaker 2: shimmering just a breath behind. It seemed for a flash
Speaker 2: that one part of me lagged at the town's edge,
Speaker 2: reluctant to leave, tethered by all the stories and burdens,
Speaker 2: joys and aches I had gathered, handed off or unknowingly
Speaker 2: carried these many years. As the train lurched into motion,
Speaker 2: cobalt roof flashing in the light, I pressed my forehead
Speaker 2: to the glass, half smiling, I found myself wondering if
Speaker 2: so many customs the world declares impossible are simply unnoticed
Speaker 2: languages of support, memory, and forgiveness. How many other towns
Speaker 2: have their own shadow trades, how many burdens quietly divided,
Speaker 2: how many joys quietly doubled? The train gathered, speed tracks
Speaker 2: singing beneath, while the fields and apple orchards unfurled like
Speaker 2: a letter home. I watched the last glint of canal light, hazy, uncertain,
Speaker 2: oddly doubled, as if a trick of the rails. I
Speaker 2: resolved wherever I wandered next to keep an eye out
Speaker 2: for gently traded shadow, and never again dismiss the impossible
Speaker 2: before learning its language.
Speaker 1: And that is the end. Thank you for listening, and
Speaker 1: I will see you in the next one.