The Lovely Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page A

it was not actually pitch dark as I had
originally thought. Directly behind me there was a very faint wash
of light on one end of the small basement that originated from a
bright horizontal line of light about seven feet above my head and
off to the left.
    The line of light was only about a half inch
thick and about three feet long. I puzzled on that line of light
for a couple seconds before I realized that it was light shining
under the door that led out of the basement.
    I closed my eyes and visualized the basement
the way I’d seen it with the light on and figured that I was right
in the middle of the small room. To my left would be the washer and
drier. To the right would be a rack with several shelves filled
with dry and canned goods. On one end of that rack would be the big
upright freezer where I loaded all the overflow of perishables that
wouldn’t fit in the fridge and freezer in the kitchen. The other
end of the rack pointed towards the stairs.
    Since I had turned around and was now facing
towards the door and stairs, I knew that I was facing north and
directly behind me was all the storage. Boxes filled with
miscellaneous knick knacks, old clothes, Christmas decorations, and
other such odds and ends were stacked against the retaining wall on
the south-east side of the basement.
    A couple old lawn-chairs, a table with a
broken leg, an old wicker picnic basket, a musty old twin mattress,
and a bunch of other stuff that my mind couldn’t quite bring into
focus was piled up against the south-west and west walls.
    All around the washing machine to my left
would be baskets of clean and dirty laundry, (mostly dirty). My
mother had long since given up on washing clothes and I was
honestly not that particular about doing it myself, although I had
learned how to do it and did occasionally wash a few clothes and
towels when I started feeling particularly grubby.
    There was a shelf above the washer that
contained all the normal things you should find in a laundry area,
soap, bleach, and drier sheets. Right in front of the Washer there
would be the small stool that I had dragged over months prior so
that I could reach the items on the shelf.
    On the south side of the washer was a big
cabinet filled with linens. That cabinet had not been opened for
months as my mother had stopped changing the sheets on our beds
when she went bonkers, and I really didn’t care if my sheets were
dirty or not.
    Directly beside the washer, on the north side
of it, was the drier, and directly north of the drier was a large
trash can where the lint from the lint screen was deposited.
    With my visualization on the basement
complete I felt confident enough to stand up and head towards the
stairs. I opened my eyes and focused them on the narrow strip of
light that shone several feet in front of, and above me. I took two
confident strides towards the stairs and then tripped ungracefully
over the small stepstool that I thought should have been further
off to my left.
    I threw my arms out in front of me as I flew
forward and caught the fingers of my right hand on the bottom edge
of the right hand banister of the stairs, bending them backwards
further than they were ever meant to go.
    The pain was sharp and sudden and I was
fairly certain that I broke the middle and ring fingers. I cried
out as I continued to fall, (my fingers apparently not quite strong
enough to stop my forward momentum).
    I must have done a bit of a pirouette as I
fell because I hit the stairs hard on my right side. My right
shoulder hit the edge of the third stair up from the bottom, my
forearm hit the edge of the second stair, and my hip crunched
against the edge of the bottom stair.
    My head swung down on a neck that suddenly
seemed to be made of rubber and smacked my right ear against the
edge of the fourth stair. When I came to rest I was all twisted up
with my left arm pointing straight out and up like a rodeo rider
trying desperately to get his eight seconds of glory, and my