Fable for Kara

One moonlit night a young woman, having worked all evening and wanting to stretch her legs, went for a walk in the little park near her apartment. She strode along the path for a while, admiring the twinkling stars in the clear sky and feeling the cool spring breeze on her face. She ran up the small grassy hill at the center of the park and looked around, stretching her arms into the air. Her moonlight shadow, lying on the slope of the hill, stretched its arms too. But she noticed that the shadow cast by the nearest streetlight hadn't moved, and she dropped her arms, very surprised. Her moonlight shadow, itself a bit startled, said, ``Don't worry about her - streetlamp shadows are always headstrong.'' ``Sorry,'' said the other shadow, ``I just wasn't paying attention. I'm the part of you that falls asleep in class.'' ``What?'' said the young woman. ``You look ridiculous standing there with your mouth open,'' said the first shadow. The second shadow echoed the young woman, who suddenly noticed that she was surrounded by thousands of shadows of herself, as if she stood at the center of a fountain of transparent darkness. Some were laughing or crying or singing, and the rest were talking at once; all of them were flickering, and she saw that they were her shadows cast by the stars. She said ``Quiet!'' in a loud voice, and the din stopped. ``One at a time,'' she said, pointing to a nearby shadow. ``What are you?'' ``I am your shadow on the pool at the base of the waterfall in Kenya you may visit in ten years,'' replied the shadow. ``I am your shadow on the floor of the Senate,'' said the next. And then they all started, waving her arms and shouting- ``I am you in despair'', ``I am you eating linguini alfredo'', ``I am the part of you that is tired of pasta'', ``I am you being tickled'' - then she said ``Wait! Let me go get my notebook so I can keep track of all of this,'' and ran back to her apartment. But when she returned to the hill, she only saw the shadows from the moon and the streetlamp, and neither would say a word.