The Lovely Shadow (40 page)

As we sat there, I explained to Elle how I
had first seen Louie beneath that very tree, and how it had seemed
so odd to me that he did not have an aura around him like every
other physical object that I saw in this world.

I further went on to explain my
interpretation of what the auras really represented, and how I had
begun to suspect the nature of the auras when I saw June’s aura
expanding when she grew sicker.

“The auras that I see,” I explained as well
as I could, “are a disruption in the fabric that separates the
physical world from the spiritual world, or to put it differently,
the other side. All physical objects in this world had their
origins in the spiritual world, as creations of God.”

“Man-made structures have an aura because
they have been fabricated using physical materials that God created
in the spirit world. The disruption around all physical objects is
similar to a magnetic field. The field is normally invisible, but
the magnetic draw is always present.”

“Just as magnets are drawn together when
their opposite poles are positioned towards each other, the
physical, which had its origin in the spiritual, is compulsively
drawn back towards the spiritual. The pull of physical against
spiritual causes a disruption in the fabric, and it’s this
disruption that I see as an aura.”

“When June was getting sicker, the pull of
her physical existence towards her spiritual creation point was
growing ever stronger, thus creating a bigger disruption in the
fabric and causing me to perceive that her aura was growing.”

Elle seemed fascinated by my new
understanding of spirit versus physical and was particularly
interested by my interpretation of the consciousness being the soul
of the soul, and she thought I was a genius for dreaming it up; I
resisted the urge to tell her that I’d had millions of years to
come up with the theory…or perhaps only seconds.

As Elle and I sat beneath the great willow,
passing the day, mourning the loss of June, I was filled with
conflicting emotions.

I had grieved for June in Hell, for countless
centuries, but was still filled with grief for my loss. I was
simultaneously filled with joy. Joie de Vivre, as Miss Lilly might
have said, ‘the joy of living.’

I am fairly certain that unless a person has
spent an eternity suffering in the darkest pits of Hell, they will
never be able to appreciate just how amazing and wonderful life can
be, with its moments of simple pleasure, like a sunset shared with
a lover, and its bitter losses, such as the death of a friend.

As the day waned, and the sun began to set in
the western sky I silently thanked my mother for the opportunity
she had given me to live once again. My own selfish mother who,
during her life was never able to honestly care for anyone but
herself, who would have gladly sacrificed a busload of orphaned
children if it meant she could get something she wanted, had
sacrificed more than just her life to grant me another chance at
life.

My mother had sacrificed her very existence!
She surrendered her existence to the void. All the energy that was
once her consciousness she transferred to me, in order to return a
life force to me.

Her consciousness no longer exists in any
realm; not Heaven, Earth, or Hell. She sacrificed more than anybody
could be expected to sacrifice in an attempt to atone for her sins
of selfishness while she had been alive.

Understanding my mother’s sacrifice,
understanding the sacrifice that Elle had made in delaying her walk
to the other side, understanding the sacrifices that June had
made—staying alive through unimaginable torment when she could have
let go of her physical tether at any time—in order to ensure that I
would graduate and have a happy and prosperous life, I felt
bitterly ashamed of my little stunt at the upstairs window.

Perhaps my trip to Hell had not had anything
to do with conscious suicide after all, but instead had much more
to do with the ungrateful and selfish heart that was beating
blackly in my dark chest at the moment I chose to jump.

So many sacrifices had been for me, by so
many people, and I had looked away from all of them and had, in all
reality, spit on their sacrifices and chose the path of darkness
instead.

I suppose I deserved the Hell that I had been
thrust into, and I quietly dedicated my new life to ensuring that I
would never again follow a path of selfishness but would instead
live unswervingly for others, whether they were alive or dead.

“So, where do we go from here?” Elle asked,
breaking me out of my rumination.

“I’m not really sure, Elle.” I replied, “I
suppose I’ll have to get that window repaired, and get June’s
funeral arranged, but after that I was thinking about maybe heading
to Pennsylvania.”

“What on earth do you want to see in
Pennsylvania?”

“Gettysburg,” I replied casually. “I hear
there are a lot of ghosts there and I think it’s time to take this
gift of mine and put it to good use. You want to come with me,
Elle?”

“I would follow you into the very depths of
Hell, Johnny.”

I laughed out loud at her comment. I wondered
if she would be so willing if she knew what evils truly lay in wait
in the depths of Hell, but I was reassured by her declaration of
love for me.

The sun sank quietly behind the distant
Cascade Mountain range and I sat beneath the great willow, holding
hands with my true love looking towards my future on a day that had
proven to be a day of revelation for me, and the day my life
started over.

###

Thank you for taking the time to read The
Lovely Shadow.

Please feel free to connect with me
online:

On Facebook:
http://facebook.com/TheLovelyShadow

On Twitter:
https://twitter.com/#!/Corkster32

On my Website: http://www.coryhiles.com/

If you are reading this note then there is a
fairly respectable chance that you are holding in your hand either
a printed book, a smart-phone, a tablet, an e-reader (such as a
kindle), or a computer mouse.

Also, since I intend to place this note at
the end of the story, there is a reasonable chance that you have
just finished reading The Lovely Shadow.

I sincerely hope you have just finished
reading it, and I also sincerely hope that you have enjoyed reading
it.

The Lovely Shadow is the first novel I have
ever written. I have written short stories, poetry, children’s
books, songs, and essays in the past—all for pleasure—but have
never taken on a project of this magnitude before, and hadn’t
written anything for pleasure for about ten years prior to
this.

I wrote this book mainly because the only
item I have ever had on my bucket list was to write a novel.
“Well,” I decided, “I’m not really getting any younger and if I am
going to get this thing done, then I’d better get cracking on
it.”

I truly enjoyed the writing of this story and
was very surprised at the way it turned out. I didn’t bother with
storyboards or character development sheets or any of that. I
simply had an idea that went something like this: “Gee, I’d like to
write a story about a guy who falls in love with a ghost.”
Everything else in the book came about as I wrote it—forming the
story in order to lead up to that one plot line.

It has been a great adventure, and I honestly
thank you for taking this trip with me.

Sincerely,

Cory Hiles

March 18, 2012