again i was without my shadow. she traipsed ahead of me, bounding stairs and i was amok. all purple and superfluous, an extravagant limb, vestigial appendage. and when she reached the top of the stairs, she smirked and i was left haggard. exhausted, i grasped the final footfall and she knelt beside me, my shadow and i, and whispered, “i shall become you in the end, with nothing to follow, not even the sound.”