Flare

“I want you to remember,” she whispered in the dark.

“What do you want me to remember?” it returned.

“Remember ME!” she pleaded, terrified she had already been forgotten, then angry at the recognition that it still mattered to her at all.

“All light looks the same to me. It just casts different shadows, and shadows are me; in different shapes, but me all the same.”

“I cast shadows.” Unsure if she was asking the question or making a statement, the night remained still.

“I cast shadows.” Uncertainty disintegrated. This was a realization and a declaration.

To her, this was voltage; a simultaneous grounded and ungrounded current. Light either allows the darkness to exist, or it banishes it. The sun creates the day and its disappearance creates the night.

“I cast shadows.”

“I cast shadows.”

“I cast shadows.”

She reminded herself repeatedly until sleep relieved her from the chore.

“You cast shadows,” they admitted, alone, to the dark.