Shadows of ourselves

I was a shadow of myself-and have been so for a long time now if truth be told. If I could measure time, that is, so to speak, in some sense, if you know what I mean.

You, too, were two shadows: of yourself and of me (even though it would kill you to admit it). And then you would be one. 

"Take aim and take care!", said the Queen.

He stood there, quivering, unresolved, at the centre of absence, a loss for words; a black sun eclipsed by a darker sun. Some silver coins in the deep inner pockets of his outer coat; with time the silver inheriting the black. The winter light on his hands, alive, the deep creases on his face, the dark river of his mind. All that he owned, fading with time. 

A few crows suddenly took flight and broke the silence. The queen's black net turned heads. Medusa let down her hair and froze a thousand hearts."You fool for so fooling me!" , she said to her shadow. No matter how close, no-one could find the way to her heart, if truth be told, in some sense, if you know what I mean. But it was November, the time of forgiveness. She read him some lines in her barbarian tongue, as if to comfort him: the way is short, the night is so dark, and still you do not find the way...   


What you are supposed to hit
is the bull’s-eye, that black spot,
that precise spot, and the arrow
is supposed to stand there quivering!
But that’s not where the arrow goes.
You get close to it, closer and closer;
no, not close enough.
Then you have to go out and pick up all the arrows,
walk back, try it again.
That black spot is highly annoying
until you finally grasp
that where your arrow stands quivering
is also the center of something.

---Olav Hauge