when I saw him I didn't know I saw him at first because I was putting my socks in the brown drawer and I saw something black that I thought was my shadow but it was him
I think I should have been scared
he was a shadow and didn't say anything when he saw me and I saw him just staring at me and then he was gone
then I saw him in my sleep but I had my eyes closed but I saw him and felt his breathing on my ear and he told me things
he used to be my dad and then he wasn't because he ate a rifle while he pulled the trigger and then his face was the wall and the wall was brain mush
he told me about mom and how he loved her but also didn't love her at the same time
I asked him if he had been happy but his shadow just shrugged and stared and kept on staring while I did my homework or napped so maybe he was happy or maybe he wasn't but now he was a shadow
at first he only came every so often at night but then he hung around more and more and then more until he was always around like when I peel oranges and the juice gets under my nails and all I can smell is oranges no matter how long I put my hands under the tap
he didn't say much aside from telling me about the gun and the wall but then he said more things about other guns and other walls in other countries
so I told mom about him and she was surprised and I don't think she believed me at first or ever but she did mention something about bacon down the drain which made me laugh but then she got mad and sent me to my room with no dinner even though I hate bacon
he was harmless in the beginning and only came sometimes and only stared with his shadow eyes and maybe I should have minded and then he started doing things
it started on a tuesday night I think because that's when we have spelling and I remember seeing my spelling sheet on the refrigerator and it had "Excelent!" written on it in red and I was washing dishes at the sink but I didn't need to use soap on this one plate I was washing because it just looked like some oil but it was too red to be oil and I didn't feel any hurts in my hands or anywhere else but then I saw the fork and then on the ground where the rat was with one of its back legs still moving when I heard a grunt from a corner shadow but then mom came in and saw things and yelled with this look in her eyes like when one of the neighborhood cats caught our favorite bird and I was thinking about the "Excelent!" the whole time and the number of red colors in the world
that happened a lot with more rats and some birds and crawly things for mom to find
they were like gifts or pranks and maybe it was supposed to be funny, and it would have been funny except it wasn't and mom definitely didn't think so because she yelled at me all the time and I was always in my room where the shadow whispered to me and the walls
and then the thing that used to be my dad made lots of noises like whispers, whispering my mom's name and then leaving a bird in the living room and mom would be pale and sit in her chair a lot and knit things and mutter to herself and jump when she thought she saw things that weren't even there
mom didn't believe me and I would tell her but she wouldn't believe so I would end up in my room and a shadow would whisper to me
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