“A man’s shadow is his worst self,” the stranger says, placing himself in front of the exit, “And yours has been sticking to my feet like dog shit since ‘The Edge of Disaster.’”
I look around for a weapon, for anything that isn’t made of wax. A fire extinguisher falls to pieces in my hands and the stranger frowns when I throw the largest at him. The chunk of wax crashes into the wall over his left shoulder and shatters further.
“I don’t know how you live with this,” he says, gesturing to my shadow, “I didn’t know a man could cause himself so much suffering.”
The room’s lighting dims and twists into prisms as his shadow extends into a pool at my feet.
“You were trailing things when this happened,” he continues, “And, would you know it, those things are trailing me now. This spot o’ haze has been dragging like an anchor all these long months, shortening my days like a head cold. And the money I’ve spent trying to banish the thing… Turns out, a spare shadow might as well be a sign hanging about my neck: ‘This man’s got an expensive problem.’”
My own feet move lethargically. The stranger’s shadow holds them to the floor.
“I hit up every mystic between here and Boston before I started to wonder if maybe this weren’t the only hanger-on. So I come here, and I see this building, and I see this display, and I see the one in the next room too. Walk with me, old friend.”
The stranger moves from the door and I leap for it, falling flat in the stretch between. He pays no attention, and as he walks I feel myself dragged, and as I drag, the light changes to accommodate the opposing shadows.
I slide through a doorway and down a set of three cement stairs, rolling to a stop at my own wax feet. In this room, I am shown in the lobby of ‘The World in Wax.’ I am politely declining membership.
“And, how about the next?” the stranger asks.
His shadow drags me through another doorway, into a dark room with a raised display. Propped on my elbows, I am level with the eviscerated stranger. He lies on the floor of a dirty public restroom, empty except for a pair of legs visible from under the door of a stall. The legs are all bone and tight, white skin, bound together by dusty blue jeans and old, leather shoes.
A sliver of dread pierces me.
“What is it?” I ask, “Did they model it? Do you know what it is?”
“You didn’t know?” he asks, shoving the door open, “It’s your goddamn worst self.”
The thing in the stall is undoubtedly me- a me with matted hair and a stomach that bulges obscenely. My wax mouth gapes for missing teeth and thick lumps, like bug bites, darken my arms.
“That’s what’s following me now,” he says, “That’s what was following you before. You’ve got a shadow so mean it gambled against you when I pushed you off into that storm. It left you for dead. Now, I need you to take it back.”
“Do you have one of those?”
“I’m the worst me there is, now, take it back.”
“Is…”
“Look,” the stranger says, his voice growing quiet and serious, “I’ve not been still more than three days before that thing shows up and I’ve been waiting here for you just about as long. You best-”
In his hush, we both hear the creak of the front door, two rooms behind us. I scramble to my feet and topple again as the stranger steps backward into a corner. His shadow tightens and holds me in place, an inky vice. Footfalls approach, slow and quiet. A floorboard groans in the next room.
“Someone there?”
A man in security uniform peers around the door frame, clearly unaccustomed to threats at ‘The World in Wax.’ He sees me on the floor and, as he swings his flashlight around to the stranger, its beam cuts through the shadow holding me.
The stranger shouts but I am well on my way before either of the men can react. There is a collision of bodies behind me, and a struggle, but nobody stops me in my hasty retreat from ‘The World in Wax.’
-traveler
