Darkness Drawing

By the dim light of an electric lamp and the firelight of a fireplace, the gentleman sat in his upright chair at a cold desk, barely keeping warm on one of the coldest, snow-laden nights of the year. No matter the number of logs on the fire, the heat couldn’t overtake the cold winding its way inside; no surprise from an old homestead. During its seasonal fit the wooden beams, the bones of the house, sounded like they were buckling, breaking inside the walls. From experience, he knew there would be no sleep during this expected, seasonal event.

The cold drove boredom into Ryan, cruelly making him drowsy on a sleepless night. Ryan decided to draw in an attempt at livening up his mind, however, boredom was never kind to his imagination. Looking around for inspiration, the room revealed knickknacks, books, and carvings on furniture. The old glass of the Victorian lattice window was warped, distorting the already twisting snowflakes outside.

The idea of distortion played in his mind. The shadows, he thought, would make an ideal subject to draw for the night. The firelight would make this interesting as it was always moving. The origins of the cast shadows he sketched were simple enough; an iron wall clock, a stack of oddly placed books on the floor, and the shadows which moved on the floor cast from the fireplace grate all intrigued him. After an hour, Ryan added another rough sketch to his pile, an interesting shadow of the desk lamp casting itself upon the far wall across from him, large and magnified. Once finished, Ryan looked back at each drawing turning the paper around in circles in self-critique. The more he studied, the more he saw more than he had originally, similar to an inkblot. In the shadow of the wall clock, his work looked like the rusty clock hands were actual hands reaching out all bent and lanky.

He laughed aloud.

The bookcase shadow drawing looked like little, silhouetted creatures sitting on the shelves in front of the books, and when he flipped the page to review his drawing of the fireplace grate, the spaces between seemed to spell out two nonsensical words: Yours, Ours. This elicited a broad smile from him; he liked the imaginative nature of this. Flipping to his last drawing, the magnified shadow of the stained glass desk lamp and its chain made for an abstract work of edges and bumps; the crisp edges of the lamp which were iron leaves and vines had become fingers reaching out for the dangling chain switch. Looking back at the wall shadow, the source of his inspiration, the imaginary shadow hands grasped the chain. It was then the electric light went dark leaving only the dancing firelight.

Ryan knew he had an imagination, yet even this crossed his own line in his sanity definition. It didn’t help any when the literally dancing shadows emanating from the fireplace spilled across his desk, tearing his drawings as they were tossed about. The fire dimmed inexplicably despite the many logs fuelling the fire, and the fireplace shadows joined the darkness around the rest of the room leaving the air bitingly cold.

Ryan envisioned two possible morning news headlines; Man Dies Maimed in Mysterious Death, or Man Dies of Premature Heart Attack During Winter Storm.

The door flung open with a blinding light. Standing in the doorway, his friend, an officer of the county was brandishing a flashlight. Ryan’s nerve abandoned him. He leapt over the desk, running past his friend to what he knew would be the officer's truck waiting outside. He didn't even bother to ask why his friend was there.

The morning headline read: Officer Missing After Checking on Residences During Severe Storm.