This is one of the shorter prose pieces in Camera Obscura’s third volume. It is told in first person from the perspective of a girl who is being followed home by a man. She describes their shadows and how the shadows seem to overlap each other as if the two of them are touching. He ends up confronting her on her steps, realizes that he made a mistake in thinking she was someone else, and walks away. Although she did not want the two shadows to be intertwined at first, now she can no longer look at her shadow the same way because it seems lonely.
This piece was absolutely stunning. In just a few short pages, the author created a delicate character that embodied a universal sense of loneliness and doubt. Chidelia’s details of the shadows, how the thin fingers would become muddled if overlapped into each others shadows, creating this sense of unwanted and unknown unity, were such that I was truly able to picture such a moment happening. The concept was creepy – a man following a girl home, keeping the same pace that she kept as she walked, but at the same time, there was this sense of comfort and realness. I am truly in awe of her ability to make me think about relationships and how someone can come into your life unexpectedly and leave this fleeting mark that somehow lasts forever.
- Jennifer A.