The Shadow-Dweller

You are missing someone, but there is no path left open to speak with them. So you share this loneliness with another. You are not really talking to this third person at all—you are searching for the shadow of someone you love within them.

Here's the strange part: this new person is missing someone too. There is no road for them to speak with whoever it is they miss. They are looking for someone else within you. Not that they are finding much, but still, talking to you doesn't feel wrong to them. You are both telling stories, and it feels good. You are both, in essence, speaking to shadows. We are creatures of shadow.

This is how people learn to live. To survive, we must learn to live this way. Those rare few who can live with the person they truly want—they are impossibly happy people. Most of us cannot afford such luck. And yet, we do not die simply because we cannot live with the person we desire. If we did, the whole world would be nothing but crematoriums and graves.

Perhaps people are born to miss—that is why they survive by missing. And because they survive, in time, a person learns to accept someone different. What choice is there? One must live, after all.