Shadow Play
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In the nearly empty gym, Leila and her friend Sara sat on two benches near the window. The place was quiet. Almost no one was there except the two of them.
Leila looked toward the far end of the room and noticed two figures sitting silently behind a large glass partition. What startled her was that one of them seemed to be facing her, moving whenever she moved.
“Sara, look! That person over there is copying my movements,” Leila whispered.
Sara laughed. “Maybe he’s doing it on purpose. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence.”
But Leila’s imagination had already started building a story. Maybe he was the ghost of the gym’s old guard. Or perhaps a wandering athletic spirit looking for a workout partner. How else could he disappear every time she tried to look carefully?
Leila decided to test it. She raised her hand, and he raised his. She nodded, and he nodded. She leaned slightly to one side, and he leaned the same way.
“This is impossible,” she said, her voice trembling, as stories of spirits and enchanted mirrors rushed through her mind.
Sara stood up, walked calmly toward the glass, then came back and said, “Come and see.”
Leila moved closer. There was no mysterious stranger there. Only the reflection of her own tired face after an hour of running, and her messy hair.
She was the shadow. She had been the hero and the stranger all along.
Leila sat quietly for a moment, then smiled with embarrassment. “If I’m the one inventing the illusion, why didn’t I create a movie star instead of a gym ghost?”
Sara held her hand. “Because your mind loves mysteries, and your heart loves adventures.”
Their evening ended with hot coffee and a long laugh about the empty gym, and the shadow that had been moving in the dark.
