“Yes, he’s lying on the ground with the other shadow. Of course, I couldn’t tell you one from the other.”
Perplexed about asking this, I thought, “Sally, what if this shadow can hear us?” I told her, “He can’t talk to us but how about hearing us?”
The baffled expression on her face with her eyes squinting like I said something amusing was priceless. She inquired how that could be possible!
“Let’s just say it is, then what?” Sally just stood there listening to what I was saying, thinking to herself, “Do you honestly believes the shadow can hear and understand what you’re saying?”
I told her, “I don’t know, but I’m willing to give it a try, besides I’m curious of what he is doing here and why!”
Sally with her sensibility thought, “How you are going to manage any form of communication with a shadow?”
And of course, I with my vivid imagination thought I would play some form of Sam Spade a private-eye detective in which made Sally laugh with hysteria. She giggled and thought, “Okay, Dick Tracy, what’s the game plan?”
I asked, “Sally, quit laughing. This is serious business.”
She said, “I can’t help myself seeing Sam Spade in the flesh.” But evidently when she glanced back down on the ground, she noticed the one shadow with his hands behind his head in a relaxed position while they were lying on the ground. At that time, she looked at me with an uncanny expression saying, “He seems to hear what we’re saying!”
She nervously asked me, “What are we going to do?”
I put my index finger to my lips and motioned to Sally. “Come here, and I’ll whisper it in your ear. Let me think about this for a minute or two.”
While we were both studying on the situation, Sally came up with an idea. She whispered to me, “Why couldn’t we use hand signals to try to communicate with the shadow?”
Then Sally perked up and said, “Why do we need to whisper?” Sally caught me off guard, and I pondered from Sally’s remark. Looking rather confused, I muttered, “I’m not for sure anymore.”
“Well, I’m thinking if you want to talk with the shadow, he needs to know himself, doesn’t he?”
I was starting to realize Sally was making more sense than I was! Excited about the idea of talking with a shadow, I thought and inquired to Sally, “How are we going to understand what he’s trying to say and what he’s trying to tell us?”
She said with a smile, “You will need to be a little more diplomatic,” as she was smirking about the very idea of me being diplomatic. In fact, Sally was starting to laugh about the very idea of me playing a congressman. She thought, “Oh yeah, Mr. inspirational diplomacy with a feather stuck in his hat. I can see it now, Mr. President. Welcome home in bringing peace and tranquility.” And she must have laughed for what seem like an eternity.
I with a grin on my face told Sally, “I think you are having way too much fun about this whole thing while I’m trying to bring some seriousness to this circumstance.” That made Sally’s laugh even louder!
The whole episode had the shadow lying there with his hands on his hips as if he was waiting for the next motion from me. “Let’s go back to the suggestion of hand signals, in which I thought was a pretty good idea,” I replied.
Sally quit her giggling and implied, “Well, you will need to ask questions and get some form of answer. How do we propose to do this?”
I gingerly quoted to Sally, “We’ll need to think about this because I don’t know!”
Sally seemed to understand the burden I must be in and took my hand and held it firmly. She comforted my indecisiveness and murmured, “We’ll figure something out.”
I asked Sally, “How do we get the shadow to respond to a question that we can all understand, and we know he uses hand signals? So, so how about we say a yes question that you put your hands on your head and the no answers you fold your arms together! Because it seems like every time I see him do something, he’s moving his hands, arms, or head.”
Evidently Sally noticed me talking to myself. I said, “When I glanced at him, he was standing on the bench with his arms folded, and he has nodded his head at me. So why not? What do you think, Sally?”
Sally gazed at me and told me, “I don’t have a clue of what you’re rambling about. You lost me. He anxiously blurred out that he can move on his own accord, and there is something weird about what he can do!”
I looked at Sally, then at the shadow, and suggested, “Let’s test it out.”
Something else crossed my mind, so I asked the shadow, “I’m going to give you a series of questions, and you will answer them yes or no!”
I told him, “If it is a yes answer, you put both hands on your head. Well, shadow, do you understand the yes-and-no answers?” And he used one hand and put it on his head; Sally saw it and got so excited and told me, “It seems to work.” But I reminded her it was one hand not both, but her rebuttal was, “He listens better than some people that I know.”
Then I told both of them, “If it is a no answer, then you fold your arms together, do we all understand?” The shadow went ahead and put his hand on his head.
Then Sally had the confidence of stating, “You can start with your first question now!”
I looked at her and thought, “Just calm down a little.”
After a few minutes passed by, I finally said, “Okay, did you leave the last man in the gray suit because he was going into the restaurant?”
The shadow folded his arms together. Sally told me, “He said no.”
I saw it and thought it would be yes for sure! Now that answer really baffled me. I was privately thinking to myself, “Is he playing with me, for he does seem to have a sense of humor?” So I asked him, “Did you want to follow me?”
He used one hand to put on his head, which meant yes. So I paused on that answer and wished I could ask him why!
Sally pondered, “Why you?”
With a concern look on my face, I said “that’s what I’m searching for”.
My third question I thought about for a few minutes, then I gazed at the shadow and said, “Were you forced to follow me because you lost the last shadow?”
He put one hand on his head. Now Sally heard and saw what happened with curiosity. She asked, “How did you know?”
And my reply was, “I didn’t! But I remember what occurred at the restaurant. You see, Sally, the gray-suit man’s shadow disappeared. Now he went up into the air and vanished out of sight. I guess looking for another shadow to follow, and I was the lucky guy because I saw it.”
She said, “Now what are you going to do?”
I grimly looked back and answered, “Nothing because if I’m looking at this right, and I lose my shadow, then he’ll have to leave to find another shadow to follow.” And here I thought, I was somewhat frightened about him, but he must be going through a process he has to in order to survive if that’s what you want to call it. But I think he is in some unknown channel caught within an unusual dilemma or is it inside another dimension? I don’t know! Just thinking about it, he might have been someone else’s shadow at one time, and somehow they got separated. Now he doesn’t know where to go and who he belongs to.”
“When you put it that way, Henry, I kind of feel sorry for him, like he’s lost and can’t find his way home.”
I looked at Sally and said,