Shadow Chaser
The hallway was longer at night.
Sometimes it narrowed near the nurses' station, other times it stretched beyond what he remembered. The ceiling lights flickered once—not broken, just slow to catch up, as though the space itself was uncertain of how far it extended. There was a rhythm to it now, something like the old lines from a poem he'd once memorized in college but hadn't thought about in years:
> "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul."
Not a declaration, but a reminder—of what he once wanted to believe.
Elias walked it slowly, past patient rooms, closed doors, soft machines humming through the walls. At one door, he paused—then moved on without knocking. The overhead lights were dimmed, the linoleum cool through his shoes. Once, he started to remove his watch, as he often did at night, but slipped his sleeve back down instead. Shadows pooled gently in corners, sloping downward like the end of a breath. Some corners gave off warmth; others felt as though they'd been left behind by someone who never returned. He’d walked this path for years, but it felt different now—elongated, echoing in a way he hadn’t noticed before. On some nights, he thought the lights ahead receded as he walked, as if space was folding itself inward. Once, he turned a corner and faced a janitor’s cart that hadn’t been there the moment before. Like something was following. Or waiting.
He paused outside his office and turned slowly, eyes scanning the corridor as though expecting to see someone—Amara, Robert, or perhaps just himself from a different time. The air carried the faintest trace of antiseptic and winter. Somewhere, far off, someone was frying plantains—sweet, oily, familiar. He hadn’t eaten them that way since his mother made them pressed in a cast-iron pan, humming a tune he could no longer name. The same smell once followed him down a market street, days after the funeral. He didn’t remember what he was buying—just the sense of walking too slowly. He stood there a moment longer, then pushed the office door open.
---
Earlier that day—or perhaps the day before, the difference no longer felt precise—Elias had woken certain that he’d accepted things. That he was beyond fear. But over coffee, the tremor in his hand returned. And with it, a sharp irritation he hadn't expected. He knocked the cup against the edge of the sink and snapped at the nurse who passed by.
Back in his office, he sat with the letter beside him, unopened. After a while, he reached for the phone, stared at the keypad, then set it down again. Later, he picked it up, dialed three digits, and pressed cancel. He rubbed his palms together. Picked up the letter again. Thought about starting a reply instead. Thought about beginning a prayer—but couldn’t remember how the first line began. Eventually, he slid the letter back into the drawer.
Later that evening, he picked it up again and held it against the window to read in silhouette. The hesitation wasn’t about the words inside—it was about what they might confirm.
---
That night, he wrote his daughter another letter. It was longer. He didn’t plan it. The pen moved like it had been waiting. He wrote about a summer when they’d eaten roasted yam wrapped in newspaper, sitting on the bumper of someone else’s car. How the salt had stung a small cut on her finger and she hadn’t cried. How the foil stuck to the skin, and the heat from the roadside grill had made them both sweat without speaking. He stopped mid-sentence. Folded the paper twice. Then burned it.
---
The hallway in the hospice changed when he wasn't looking. Once, he passed a room he was certain had been sealed for months—its door now open just a crack, light blinking from inside. Another time, he reached the end and turned left instinctively, only to find himself back near the kitchen, unsure how. Some evenings it bent. Others, it pressed in—walls closer than he remembered. But he walked it anyway. Not to go anywhere. Just to keep from standing still.
In the corridor near the hospice kitchen, Elias once found Robert at the vending machine, staring through the glass. When he turned, he looked both present and somewhere far away.
They walked together in silence.
Robert didn’t sit right away. He reached into his coat and removed a folded page—creased deeply, like it had been carried too long. He placed it on the desk but said nothing about it. Elias watched his hands carefully—how they hesitated, how the paper barely made a sound.
After a moment, Elias opened his drawer and pulled out an old envelope. He started to fold it—once lengthwise, once again—then paused. Left it unfolded on the desk. Elias folded it again, slower this time. He didn’t know yet what he’d say.
The room was quiet. The chair across from him sat in its place. Nothing had changed. And yet—he looked at the window.
Light shifted on the surface, just enough to blur the reflection.
Robert turned toward the window but didn’t look out. Finally, he sank into the chair across from Elias. The fabric groaned softly beneath him.
“You know what gets me?” he said, not looking up. “I used to say I'd have more time. But I stopped believing that a while ago. Still—still I say it.”
He paused, fingers twitching lightly against the chair. “My brother. Maya. That shop. I thought I’d get to it all eventually. But I didn’t. And now I watch myself fading out of the story like I was barely here.”
Elias didn’t answer. He reached for the envelope again. Pressed it flat. Then just let his hand rest there.
Later, when he tried to recall the conversation, he couldn’t remember Robert’s exact words—only the angle of his shoulders and the sound of his own pulse. The hallway that night felt wider, then narrower, as though undecided about what it wanted him to feel.
---
Later that week, Elias avoided Amara. Skipped the time they usually met. When they did cross paths, he smiled too quickly and looked away. It wasn’t until he forgot himself and walked into the lounge where she sat reading that she looked up and said, “Back to walking in circles, are we?”
“I thought I was past this,” Elias said, lowering himself into a chair. “But I’m not.”
“Maybe we don’t move past. Maybe we circle until we stop pushing against it.”
He closed his eyes. “Or until it stops pushing back.”
Amara gave a faint nod. Then, after a pause, she said, “I wasn’t always like this, you know. I used to think if I just held tighter, I could bend the ending toward me. That if I stayed loud enough, grief would turn into something else.”
Elias looked over, surprised. “Did it happen all at once?” Elias asked, though he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. “Or did it sneak in?”
“I stopped thinking it was supposed to feel heroic. Started thinking it was enough just to keep walking.”
---
The diagnosis had come a week before that. The doctor’s voice was soft, practiced. The kind of voice you use when no one’s asking you to be brave.
Elias nodded. Then walked home without his coat, the wind pushing gently at his back. There was a neighborhood bakery still open, its windows steamed. He remembered his mother sending him there with exact change, and how he always spent a little of it on a second roll for the walk home.
He cleared out a drawer—one filled with visitor tags, expired prescriptions, a ring of forgotten keys. He held the envelope loosely and sat in Robert’s old chair. For a moment, he lifted the letter to the light the same way Robert had once done with his own note. Then he folded it differently—once lengthwise, once slanted—and placed it between two books. Not long. No explanation. A gesture.
Later, a reply arrived. Four lines. A place. A time. No punctuation.
He dressed carefully that morning. Pressed the cuffs of his shirt flat with the side of his hand. He took the bus. Walked the last two blocks. Waited. He sat on the bench Amara used to favor, though it was too low for his knees. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. Pressed his palms flat to the seat. Tried stillness the way she had, but felt restless in it.
She arrived before the hour. No hug. No confrontation. Just a nod, as if they were picking up the middle of a conversation they’d been having all along.
Neither apologized.
They sat on a bench. Talked about small things. The way the rain in Lagos fell sideways, sliding under umbrellas. How the power had gone out mid-journey, and they had eaten puff-puff by flashlight in the back of a trotro. Her dog. A book she'd left behind when she was sixteen.
Neither apologized.
When she stood to go, she said, "You write shorter now."
He smiled. “I use fewer words when I mean them.”
She hesitated. Then touched his shoulder lightly—the same way Amara had once touched the edge of his chair before leaving the room. Not ownership. Not forgiveness. Something in between.
Elias wept. Not because it was enough. But because it was something.
---
The note Robert left remained unopened until a week later. Inside was a single sentence: “If you read this, say something I never could.”
Elias folded it again, slower this time. He didn’t know yet what he’d say. But when he caught his reflection in the glass—creased shirt, quiet eyes—he realized the chair across from him was no longer empty.
---
He thought of Amara less as a person now, more as a tone of voice he carried into silence. He thought of Robert like an unfinished sentence—still echoing, still moving.
The hallway in the hospice shifted depending on his breath. Once, he passed a room that had been locked for years, now slightly ajar. Another time, he reached the end only to find it curved back toward the beginning. Some evenings it curved to the left, other times it felt like a straight path he hadn’t yet walked. But Elias walked it anyway. Once, he stopped in front of the vending machine, like Robert had, stared at it without knowing why, and walked away empty-handed.
Each room he passed whispered something soft. The scent of orange blossoms from someone’s hand lotion reminded him of an old clinic; the hush of monitors fell in and out of rhythm with his steps. One door released a gust of heat that reminded him of roasting yams. Another let out the crackle of a radio sermon in a language he only half-remembered. The echoes weren’t nostalgic—they were unsettled, incomplete. Each shadow paused, then stepped away.
---
When he saw Amara again, they didn’t speak at first. There was no reason to rush.
Finally, Elias said, “I think I kept moving because I didn’t want the shadow to catch up.”
Amara's eyes met his but didn’t soften immediately. She waited a breath. “You’ve always been moving,” she said. “Just not always forward.”
Elias looked at the floor. “I thought running was just the act of avoiding. But maybe it’s more subtle than that—maybe it’s how I framed silence, how I managed distance.”
Amara exhaled—not a sigh, something quieter. She looked at the floor between them and said, “Sometimes we talk like we’re outside it all,” she said. Then stopped.
“But I think it…”
She didn’t finish.
Elias didn’t ask her to.
“I think I’ve stopped running,” he said. Then paused. “Or maybe I’ve just stopped trying to outrun it.”
Amara didn’t answer. Her gaze lingered on the window. He followed it—watched the curtain move just slightly, like breath.
He didn’t say anything more. Neither did she.
---
That night, Elias sat in the office with the door slightly open. The shadows didn’t press in. They stayed in their corners. Present, but easy.
He placed the scarf—creased, half-folded—on the desk. The fabric unfurled slightly when he let go.
He opened the window. The air moved through slowly, brushing past his wrist.
Down the hall, a door clicked shut. Another one didn’t.
He sat.
And the hallway didn’t end.
He stood.
The air changed as he moved—nothing dramatic, just a shift in weight.
He walked. Not to arrive. Not to return.
Just to feel something stir.
. |
