Shadow Baby

The shadow baby swung upside-down on the monkey bars. There wasn't an actual corporeal baby, just a shadow of a baby. Its outline was most distinct at high afternoon when discarded fast food wrappers danced across the playground parking lot. The shadow baby cavorted from dawn to dusk, climbing and swinging on playground equipment. He scaled the domed monkey bars and skittered across teeter-totters. Late in the afternoon when the shadow of everything stretched toward a vanishing point on the horizon, shadow baby could be found building castles in the sandbox just before he disappeared for the night. The children were so used to the small shadow that they played unaffected by its presence. But attending mothers and nannies all shied from the haunting image that cavorted amongst their children. Adults didn't consider unattached shadows of babies swinging on monkey bars as natural. Shadows don't exist without tangible objects that cast them. Yet there it was, frolicking right along with their own kids. Sometimes during play, the children stopped and whispered something to shadow baby and even though it made no sound, its small body looked as if it were giggling or outright laughing. That unnerved the parents even more. The shadow baby ignored the adult’s superstitious fears. One day, the children didn't come to the playground, leaving shadow baby to play alone. Then the next day, heavy-set men showed up with large, angry sounding machines and the playground was bulldozed down and cleared away. The asphalt was scraped flat and bare. The shadow baby no longer had monkey bars to swing on or slides to ride. His bouncing image melted into the scrapped and scarred pavement where the playground once existed.

#fiction #short story #random object challenge #thriller #shadows #babies #playgrounds #william calkins