Created: 2-22-06THE PROFESSOR & THE BOY
The boy gave one last look at the mirror beside the front door just to glance upon his lightning bolt scar, adjusted his glasses, gathered his books under his armpit and walked all the way from his home to school through the great pastures of green that separated the two places in between. His two godfathers watched proudly as he left before the one with long black hair bid the brown-haired one goodbye with a kiss and a promise to return from work as soon as possible for dinner. The boy’s two other friends—a couple—came over and joined him in his march to school. The shadow beneath the boy’s feet got crooked here and there along the grass and tiny red and yellow flowers that grew out of it, and merged once in a while with his friends’ shadows, but his shadow stood out most among the trio, like a child who couldn’t wait to get a growth spurt and outgrow his fellow peers.
The professor also walked all the way from home to school through an overhead bridge, but not before he raked his shoulder-length hair and smoothed it a little and double-checked to see if he had all the teaching materials ready in his files. He lived alone, so no one was there to bid him goodbye and watch him leave. Frankly, he didn’t care much for it either. He was much at ease with the bachelor life. He passed by the boy’s long-haired godfather as he walked along the bridge. They seemed to recognize each other as they gave each other an acknowledging nod without any greetings whatsoever. His shadow was a long, mature statue that mirrored its master’s built but not his cold, expressionless sallow face.
Hours later, the bell signaling classes have ended echoed throughout the school. The professor’s shadow walked out of the school gate’s shadow, passed through a skyscraper’s shadow, passed by a signboard’s shadow, avoided a van’s shadow and stopped at the crossroad, looking at a random tree’s shadow.
Then, beside a traffic light’s shadow, he met the boy’s shadow.
It was only about a second. No more, no less. They both gave each other a glance, then continued to follow after their masters.
The next day, the professor’s shadow met the boy’s shadow again at the same traffic light’s shadow. This time, they got closer and gave each other a two-second glance. On the third day, the boy was leaning on the traffic light while reading a comic book and the professor was writing something on his PDA; they were both waiting for the red light to turn green. Their shadows gave each other an acknowledging nod. Finally, on the fourth day, both shadows decided to get together.
“Hello,” the professor’s shadow said.
“Hello,” the boy’s shadow replied.
Both of them stared straight at each other. Suddenly, the professor’s shadow gave a sideways grin and walked over to the boy’s shadow, covering him entirely.
“Look! I just ate you up,” the professor’s shadow said.
“Hey! That’s not funny!” the boy’s shadow protested inside the professor’s shadow, annoyed.
“I can even spit you out.” So saying, the professor’s shadow stepped out from the right, leaving the boy’s shadow standing in the left with his hands crossed. “See? Nothing to it. There is nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried. It’s just lame.”
“No, it isn’t. Watch. You can even have your head stuck through mine, or your shoulder, or your arm, like we’re a pair of Siamese twins,” the professor’s shadow replied as he quickly leaned his head over until it touched the boy’s head, then shoulder, then arm.
“I’m not some four-year-old kindergartener, you know,” the boy’s shadow took three steps away from him.
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to belittle you,” the professor’s shadow said quietly. “I just want to make friends with you.”
The green light soon lit. Both the professor and the boy crossed the road and separated in their own road. The professor’s shadow turned to see the boy walking into a drug store and his shadow following behind, but not without glancing at him for a moment.
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Three days of heavy rain had passed. One sunny afternoon, the professor’s and the boy’s shadow met at their usual spot. Their glances brushed each other for a while before turning to look at other things, their feelings a little mixed and awkward.
“I have not seen you for 72 hours,” the professor’s shadow said as he stared at an office building’s shadow.
“Uh huh,” the boy’s shadow replied. He was looking at a car’s shadow passing by.
“You can lean on my shoulder if you’re tired of standing,” the professor’s shadow said as the car’s shadow passed him by, then lowered his voice as he sat down and said, “That is…if you want to.”
The boy’s shadow continued to count the number of car shadows passing by. By the time he got to number ten, he was already leaning beside the professor’s shadow’s shoulder. As if fate intervened, the professor’s papers slipped out of his files just when the light turned green, and the boy was too engrossed in talking on his cell phone to even notice the green light or the professor’s papers flying about along the pedestrian road.
“You’ll have to wait for the next green light to cross,” the boy’s shadow said as he stared at the traffic light.
“So do you. But never mind, I’m not in a hurry.”
The professor had done picking up his papers with help from a few passers-by and the boy had done talking on his cell phone. They both looked at the traffic light going yellow and cursed inwardly before remained standing at their spot.
“If for a moment, I want to sit on your lap, just for a while,” the boy’s shadow said softly. Neither the cars’ shadows nor the office building’s shadow nor the traffic light’s shadow heard him say that.
But the professor’s shadow did. He gladly turned aside and protruded his lap. The boy’s shadow carefully sat on him.
“Ain’t as bad as I thought,” the boy’s shadow said after a minute of sitting there and making himself comfortable.
The professor’s shadow smiled. Unfortunately, they couldn’t say any longer, for both their masters are crossing the road. The boy’s shadow quickly jumped off the professor’s shadow’s lap and went back to his master, and the professor’s shadow quickly stood up to catch up with the pace of his master. Luckily, none of their masters suspected a thing.
The next day, the boy’s shadow wanted to again sit on the professor’s shadow’s lap, but he gestured him to sit on his shoulders instead. “I like it that way,” the professor’s shadow muttered bashfully.
So the boy’s shadow reached up and sat on his shoulders, smiling happily. He had secretly wished to do that for a while.
Since then, the professor’s shadow and the boy’s shadow met everyday at the same spot for two minutes. They couldn’t do much about that because that was the only way they could get together and talk without their masters’ knowledge. Three months have passed by, but they felt like only two hours have passed by. And all the while, though the boy was studying and the professor was teaching under the same school, they never once knew or even gave each other a knowing glance. Neither of them knew that each other existed, but their shadows were getting more and more acquainted.
Three days before November, the boy’s shadow said to the professor’s shadow, “We’ve known each other for three months now.”
“That would be about 90 days,” the professor’s shadow replied.
“That’s about two hours.”
“To be more precise, it’s 2 hours, 39 minutes and 25 seconds.”
“Well spoken, like a true professor,” the boy’s shadow grinned. “Today, I want to take you to some place special.”
“Where?” the professor asked curiously. When the boy’s shadow pointed upwards, he was shocked. “Up there? Would it be far? We cannot leave our masters for too long.”
“Don’t worry. I heard it would be cloudy soon, so we can go up there once the clouds step in.”
The professor’s shadow looked up and saw that the boy’s shadow was right—there, coming up from the north, was a huge dark cloud. As soon as the shadow of the cloud came and covered the traffic light’s shadow, the boy’s shadow held out his hand and took the professor’s shadow’s hand, floating higher and higher above towards the sky. It was the professor’s shadow’s first time leaving the ground, so he dare not open his eyes. Passing through the layers of the cloud, he felt as if he had jumped into an icy cold pond, and then slowly the coldness turned into a nice warm Jacuzzi feeling, and it was coming from every direction around him. He opened his eyes and saw the bright sun shining on his body and noticed that there were all kinds of shadows in different shapes and sizes. There were cow shadows, cat shadows, dog shadows, tree shadows, flower shadows, grass shadows, etc…the shadows of everything that moved and lived on earth were there playing all kinds of games with each other and seemed to have one hell of a good time.
“Whenever there’s a cloudy day, we all come up here and play,” the boy’s shadow said proudly to the professor’s shadow.
The professor was both happy and sad. He never knew that there was such a place as this. He recalled days, months, even years when he was growing up with his master, he had to stay indoors every time there was a cloudy day, and days like those were the worst, most boring days of his life, unlike now.
“Why don’t I see any other human shadows?” the professor’s shadow asked, feeling unfair at being left out.
The boy’s shadow didn’t reply. He just gave the professor’s shadow a peck on the cheek, then took his hand and started playing everywhere. Soon, the professor’s shadow had forgotten all about what he had just asked. They floated from north to south then east to west. The boy’s shadow grabbed a handful of dark cloud and splat it at the professor’s shadow’s face. The professor’s shadow did the same, only he grabbed an armful and smothered it all over the boy’s shadow’s body. The darker they smothered each other, the louder they laughed. They even noticed other parts of their fair body that weren’t smothered and laughed even louder.
After having their fun, they tiredly lay on the cloud and stared at the blue sky. The professor’s shadow made a snow angel on the cloud, and the boy’s shadow made a smaller version of his. After a while, the professor’s shadow turned around and took the boy’s shadow’s chin and kissed him deeply. His kiss was returned with a tentative, childish passion and they continued kissing for a long while. Finally, their lips parted and the professor’s shadow said in a silent breath, “Thanks for bringing me here.”
The boy’s shadow smiled in his own blissful way, then sat up slowly and said in a weird voice, “Actually, I wanted to…I wanted you to see these shadows.” So saying, he pointed at a couple of tree shadows.
“What’s so nice about tree shadows?” the professor’s shadow sat up and asked.
“That’s not exactly what I want you to see. Take a closer look at that tree shadow and the one beside it and see what’s the difference.”
The professor’s shadow looked closely at the tree shadows and realized that one of the trees was going bare, its leaves almost gone without a trace.
“Winter is coming soon, so their leaves have already died beforehand.”
“Oh…”
“Soon, only the winter plants and their leaves would be the last one standing,” the boy’s shadow continued, his eyes not leaving the professor’s shadow. “Because the plants of spring, summer and autumn have all died.”
The professor’s shadow turned to the boy’s shadow and began to understand what the latter was trying to say.
“Are you saying…you’re…you’re going to die?”
The boy’s shadow nodded, “My master is very ill. So far he’s still walking and breathing because he’s downing medication like M&M sweets. He’s going to do an important—massive, if you ask me—surgery in a few days’ time at another country, but his chances of surviving it are wearing thin. If he dies…I’ll cease to exist.”
Both of them stopped talking. They knew in their hearts that death would stand between them and if that happens they would never meet ever again. They sat there without saying another word as they stared at the brightly lit sun. As the dark cloud began to move towards the south and the shadows went back to their masters one by one, the professor’s shadow stood up abruptly, threw a handful of dark cloud and exclaimed, “This cannot happen! We must tell our masters!”
“We can’t do that now, can we?” the boy’s shadow asked, doubtful. “They won’t believe us.”
“No! We must tell them something! We’ll be separated in a few days’ time, and who knows what might happen then! I can’t bear to lose you! I love you so much, yet our masters don’t even know that—they don’t even know that each other even existed! I cannot bear the thought of you dying! I cannot! I love you too much to let you go! I love you!”
The professor’s shadow slammed his fist angrily on the cloud he’s standing on, and the boy’s shadow saw a tear trickle silently down his cheek. He knew that he meant every word he said. The boy’s shadow finally nodded hard in agreement.
So as soon as the cloud moved away, both shadows went back to their masters to tell them the whole thing. By the time the boy swallowed his suppressant for the day before bed and the professor finished marking the papers for today’s test, they’ve heard everything their shadows had to say.
“That’s impossible!” the boy protested. “OK, maybe it’s alright to be gay—both my godfathers are—but students can never fall in love with their professors!”
“But he’s different!” the boy’s shadow insisted, looking straight at his master. “He’s not like some stuck up professor who likes to nag about handing in homework and coming to class in time. Besides…he’s not just a professor…he’s a good man with the most charming personality I’ve ever met. If his shadow is this way, I’m sure you’ll like the professor.”
“Could this be true?” the professor muttered before keeping his books and got ready for bed. To him, he thought he had just heard some wacky alcohol-induced story meant for little children. After all, he did just come back from a family gathering and had drunk a bit more than his discipline-trained mind would allow. Had he drunken any more, he would’ve given away the secret of his true preference for men.
‘Hogwash! That’s just impossible!’ the boy thought before he pulled in the covers and fell asleep.
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The next day the boy’s shadow told his master the same story. The boy refused to believe him as he packed his suitcase.
The day after that, as the sun rose, he had forgotten yesterday’s ignorance. He kept having the feeling that he had to go see a professor his shadow had been telling him about, yet it was today that he was going to leave to another country for surgery. So, after making an excuse to his fathers that he was going to his friends’ place to bid a final goodbye, he let his shadow lead him to the overhead bridge to get to the professor’s home.
It was a Sunday morning. The professor lay on his bed and opened his eyes, yet he didn’t get off bed. He had a sudden strange craving to get up and get some fresh air at his front yard.
“What’s going on?” the professor thought as he put on his bathing robes over his pajamas, walked out of his room and down the stairs, through the living room and out towards the front door. As he opened it, there stood a boy with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead.
The boy stood there outside his gate, staring at him with a pair of shining green eyes behind round glasses.
“Hello,” the boy greeted.
“Hello,” the professor greeted back.
Both of them stared straight at each other.
“I gather that it’s you my shadow’s been talking about,” the professor said.
“I gather I can say the same thing about you.”
The professor stared at the boy trying to smooth his unkempt hair without success. He thought he could be about half his age—a seventh or eighth grader, perhaps—or maybe more, he couldn’t really put it for sure, unlike the strapping seniors he taught in his class of eleven graders. He secretly marveled at the strong spirit that hid behind the striking green eyes the boy had, yet how frail and pale the rest of his body was. It was as if it was trying its best to struggle, to thrive and to support a dying body. The boy popped a suppressant into his mouth and saw the shoulder-length hair his shadow was so proud of on the professor’s head as well as his crooked nose. His face was rather expressionless and cold, like some guy who worked in some CIA or FBI or other high-profiled department that held the government’s dark secrets. Yet he could tell that beneath that tough, cold and impassive exterior was someone who just wished he could break out of his icy prison and treat everyone the way he truly wanted to, but couldn’t because of many years of built-in pride.
The professor looked like he just woke up from a dream. He said, “Thank you for coming all this way to see me.”
“I owe it to my shadow,” he jerked his head towards his shadow who is hugging the professor’s shadow passionately, then downed another suppressant from a different bottle and continued, “I’m leaving for Columbia today.”
“Could you not stay for a few more days?” the professor’s eyes showed some secret anticipation. “I mean, we’ve only just met.”
“I’m afraid I have to refuse,” the boy said as he looked at his watch. “My flight is scheduled for today. Got the tickets and luggage all ready. If I wait any longer, the tumor in my body is going to eat me alive, no thanks to this scar here. Got it when I was fighting with some eleven graders named Malfoy and Riddle. Doctors said that the tumor virus went in through here.”
The professor felt slightly disappointed. He knew Malfoy and Riddle. They were his star pupils, yet with the most attitude problem. He knew of them fighting, but didn’t know that it was this boy they clobbered. He would have to have a word with them sooner or later about this.
“I’ll come back as soon as I recover from surgery,” the boy replied coolly, as if he knew he was going to recover the next day.
“I suppose I might miss you. Would you miss me?” the professor asked. What was he saying? Was he experiencing love at first sight here? Why the sudden gesture?
“Don’t be daft! We’ve only just met. I bet you’re going to forget everything you’ve just said.”
“I beg to differ. Are you suggesting my lack of short-term memory or that I’m senile?” the professor crossed his arms, his pride a little hurt.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I just think that with your busy life teaching and looking out for other students and all, you’ll soon be too busy to even remember someone insignificant as me,” the boy explained, feeling a little guilty for hurting him.
The professor looked coldly at the boy and refused to say more. He discovered that he had just met one of the most indignant people in his entire life.
“Alright,” the boy stepped backward a little. “Maybe we can first start with becoming half a friend.”
“Half a friend?”
“That’s right,” the boy nodded. “If we exchange shadows, then we have about enough time until I recover from my surgery to get to know each other by chitchatting with each other’s shadow.”
“I suppose it’s crazy enough to work,” the professor rubbed his chin and nodded in agreement.
So the boy lifted his foot one by one and shook off his shadow before putting onto the grass of the professor’s front yard. The professor tried lifting one foot, but the shadow still remained stuck onto it, and no matter how he shook it, it won’t come off.
“Try using scissors,” the professor’s shadow suggested. The professor quickly went in to get a pair of scissors, then came out again to meet the boy who was waiting patiently outside. He held the scissors over the thin, smooth line that connected his right foot and the shadow’s and cut it right down to the line that connected his left foot and the shadow’s, but the shadow didn’t seem like he was going anywhere. The professor felt rather awkward and stupid standing outside the yard with a pair of scissors cutting at nothing, and in front of a boy nonetheless.
“I guess the connection line strengthens through time as we grow older,” the professor said. “What a shame. I suppose you’ll have to take back your shadow.”
“It’s alright. You can keep him,” the boy replied nonchalantly.
“What? But that’ll mean you’ll have no shadow! What would people think?”
“I don’t really need a shadow where I’ll be going and staying. Besides, who pays attention to shadows nowadays? If necessary, I’ll just simply pick some unsuspecting patient’s shadow and make it mine. No one would know the difference anyway.”
“But then you’ll forget about me.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t. I may be sick, but I’m not senile,” the boy said with a confident grin. “Anyway, with my shadow with you, you won’t forget about me.”
“But…”
“That’s it for now. I’ve got to run,” the boy said finally after looking at his watch.
The professor looked at the boy and knew he couldn’t keep him for long. He let out a sigh and said, “So…it’s goodbye then.”
“Goodbye.”
The boy didn’t go away immediately. He looked at the professor a little longingly. The professor looked as if he knew what he wanted. He sat on the bench beside the fence that separated his home from his neighbour and patted his thigh. The boy walked over tentatively and sat on his lap.
“Not bad. It’s softer than I thought. No wonder my shadow liked sitting on your shadow’s lap.”
The professor smiled a little. They sat that way quietly for a while before the boy gave the professor a bear hug and a peck on the cheek and hopped off his lap, running out of the gate and into the streets until he could be seen no more.
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That was the shortest day of autumn. By the next piece of the calendar, winter came.
For the entire winter, the professor and his shadow listened to all the boy’s shadow’s life stories—from the day he was born till autumn this year. All the good times and bad times, all the things the boy told him and secrets the boy thought he didn’t know were told by the boy’s shadow. The professor learnt about the boy losing his parents in a car accident and living with his two gay godfathers and was surprised to know that the long-haired man he used to go to school with but barely knew much was the boy’s godfather. He heard about the tumor caused by the random virus the boy caught from the wound inflicted by his star pupils and he had given them a sound warning about it. Sometimes they would imagine the boy creeping into other wards looking for shadows belonging to other patients too sick to get up and realize they were gone and laughed at the thought of the boy being a shadow thief and might even target the doctors and nurses just to give them a fright. And at night, when the boy’s shadow and the professor’s shadow slept in each other’s arms on clouds lit by soft moon rays, the professor would dream about the boy going from one ward to another to ‘borrow’ shadows, then bid them goodbye when he got tired of them.
But the boy and the professor had forgotten one thing—patients undergoing major surgeries are usually put in ICU wards with no other patients or wards around and no one enters except the same doctor, nurses and family members, and patients in ICU usually are out in the cold for a long time and wouldn’t even have the chance to find other patients to ‘borrow’ shadows.
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Spring finally came. The boy didn’t come back.
Summer moved in. The boy still didn’t come back.
The boy’s shadow began to grow thinner day by day. The sunlight slowly seeped through his body, making him more and more transparent. The professor’s shadow held him in his arms fearfully, talking to him and whispering sweet nothings to him, even put him on his lap with shivering hands and kissing him with trembling lips. But the boy’s shadow didn’t seem to be getting any better. In fact, he got even worse. He became paler and more transparent by the minute. Until one foggy morning of autumn, he disappeared into thin air.
The professor’s shadow was so devastated that he couldn’t speak. Everyday he could only look at his empty lap and think about the friend he had came to know and fell in love with by the traffic light. He wept silent tears until he could weep no more, and finally after endless days of depression and heartbrokenness, he couldn’t even remember how to speak.
So the professor, after another family gathering, began to believe that he had heard another one of those alcohol-induced stories about a boy and his shadow-borrowing escapades. And by the next spring after coming clean with his family and moving in to the apartment of his recently dated boyfriend—one of his star pupil, Malfoy, as a matter of fact—he had forgotten all about it.
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