Time Is A Penumbra (A To Z Challenge)(250=1)

Time Is A Penumbra.

Almost-shadow: depending on where a person stands, all or some obscuring of the light occurs.

The light is the future.  It shines all around us and over us and on us, but because we stand in the penumbra, the future is eclipsed by the present and so we do not see it.

If you stay in the middle, none of the light gets through and you wander through life exactly like a person in a dark room: unsure, arms outstretched, flinching from easily-imagined collisions with endtables or walls you did not know were in front of you. But if you manage to step to the edge, glimpses of the light are possible.

A man makes his way to the edge of the occluding body, the occlusion being his own existence. He sees some of the light, catches glimpses of his future: sitting on a bus as the Navy Pier recedes, carrying a birthday cake with eleven candles flaring atop it, first clasping hands and then awkwardly hugging another man.  He experiences these things the way eyes experience a photograph: knowing that they are real while also knowing they are images.

The light is painfully bright and one must be careful not to wander too far out, for the light can blind, and make it hard to find one’s way back, so most stay in the shadow or at best stick their head out fleetingly.  Some brave, or foolish, souls go into the light and stay there. 

____________________________________________________________________________

This is one of those 250=1 stories, in which the story is exactly 250 words long including the title. No more, no less. I guess that's the meaning of the word exactly, though, so you probably got that.  I'm going to eventually write 250 of them and then publish them all in a book, and then be a gazillionaire, and then move to Hawaii, and then find a seashell and then take that seashell back to my home and put it on a shelf by the fireplace, and then probably eat dinner, I guess. I'd probably be hungry by then.

If you want to read more 250=1 stories, click here.

ARE YOU A WRITER? Probably. If so, I PAY FOR STORIES. Click the We Pay For Stories tab at the top for details. (The tab uses the royal We, because tabs are always puttin' on airs.)

I'd get that eye checked out if I were you.

FREE BOOK! The Scariest Things, You CAN'T Imagine is a collection of horror stories that will frighten the living daylights out of you. Honestly. Like The Grave-Robbers, about a family that clones little boys and has catacombs full of bodies below their small farm house. YOU WILL LOVE it, provided that you love horror stories that come in ebooks. Otherwise, you'll be indifferent to it.  CLICK HERE TO GET IT FREE AND FIND OUT HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT IT.

And, finally, the post below is an ongoing story of the alphabet: The Letter X has helped humans get an afterlife, which has resulted in other letters being angry, and in letters becoming more real.  Now, a few of them have resolved to help Diana find her dead lover, and the key to that seems to be Diana's mad sister.  It's really good and you don't have to have read the previous installments to enjoy it. Do I sound too needy? I think I sound too needy.