It has been quite a few months since my last room partner, Emma, bid me goodbye. A silent entity, I will remember her for her uncanny habit of finding her way into my bed soon after she knew that I had drifted into sleep and lie next to me causing my quilt to slide away towards her. It really pissed me off at times! Having to wake up again and again from my sound sleep to pull the quilt back on me, only to recede to my slumber and be woken yet again. I don't think it was just my imagination that I could hear Emma stifle a laugh. I just snort back in irritation and draw myself back into sleep.
I often wondered about how Emma came to live with me. A peaceful childlike entity like her sharing space with a moody loudmouth like me. She must have had her own share of complains about me too. I never truly understood anything about her except that for some strange reason she felt protected around me. Perhaps because I didn't treat her like the other people she might have chanced upon. I never berated her for her presence or didn't show her signs of discomfort (I wasn't uncomfortable at all). I do remember once, when a friend had challenged uncover her presence, she had been so frightened that she hid behind me to avoid their jeering eyes. That was the first time I realised her need for me. But after she left, I didn't recall her much as I really wanted her to find peace.
Happy to be on my own, I went about life doing my best to fulfill whatever she asked of me and so when the symptoms of sleeplessness struck me again, I was baffled. For quite sometime I remained clueless of my newest roommate. And then, in the throes of a dark time one night, he made presence felt. Like always, it started with a pale shadow around the room averting my eye. Even as I overlooked it each time as a game my fickle mind was playing on me, I knew that a chain of events had been initiated all over again. As I sat back teary-eyed, finding myself slip deeper into the black hole of my mind that I had very recently crawled out of, I felt a cold presence on my left arm. Kalut (Shadow of the Moon) who had been sitting by my side all the while, had held my arm as if in response to my cry for aid. Over the next few days, I have experienced him several times. When I received, quite inexplicably, a photograph that I had been longing for eight years now, he was there to rejoice with me. When I broke down while reading a letter, he was there to break my fall. He even surprised me once, when he forced me to stop in my tracks in the middle of the road by blowing in my ear, averting a terrible accident. Earlier this evening, I was quite shocked again to sense him sitting right behind me, looking over my shoulder. That is why I felt the need to write about him. I don't mean to open a channel of communication with him, it would be drastically incorrect on my part to do so. But I do intend to thank him for being there with me, even if he doesn't understand.
I will not be so naive to overlook his impact on my life. While I have been able to write down some of his experiences with me, there are other changes that have occurred which I do not wish to share in this space. For now, Kalut, the Shadow of the Moon and I will remain, vigilantly watching over one another. For I have never shared my space with a male entity before and I have much to learn.
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