"Dark Earth,” Sarah L. Parris

Today on Midwest Weird: “Dark Earth," by Sarah L. Parris.

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Sarah Parris writes short speculative and fantasy fiction. She is also an instructor of English and Creative Writing, which she believes is the best job ever. Sarah lives in Missouri with her wife and cats. In her free time, Sarah can often be found playing Dungeons & Dragons.

Midwest Weird is an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions. We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.

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Episode Transcript:

This is Midwest Weird, an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions.

We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.

Today’s episode: "Dark Earth," by Sarah Parris. Read by the Midwest Weird team.

The moon was larger than it had ever been the night the Earth split apart. Our shadows have never been the same. Mine appears viscous and fluid, stretched out before me. It shifts the way water does in oil. Some have barely any shadows at all. My mother’s is thin, hardly noticeable even in harsh daylight.

The saying used to be that when someone looked drained, they were a shadow of themselves, or perhaps that they had shadows beneath their eyes. No one uses those anymore – not since we noticed that sometimes in the sky, we can see another dark shape between the stars somewhat the size of the moon.

NASA hasn’t confirmed any suspicions, except to say that there is a celestial body there with the density and mass to suggest a planet. The rest is classified, or so they say. I think they’re too afraid to look. I know I am. I don’t glance at the sky anymore. Not out car windows, or in puddles, or in the reflections of storefronts or sunglasses. My heart pounds fast enough when I catch sight of the shadow that isn’t quite mine. But I can’t avoid looking up and looking down. A girl’s gotta live.

I hand a paper cup of coffee across the counter to an older woman in a pink coat. The charm of my bracelet dangles near the countertop but my shadow doesn’t follow, shifting instead like shade at the bottom of a swimming pool, wavelike, darker beneath my fingers and lighter beneath my palm. I smile at the woman and wish her a nice day. Her shadow is pooled in the slope of her shoulders on the floor. The shadow of the man behind her lies across the linoleum in the opposite direction, though the light source is the same. The darkest part is his head. Outside, the shadows of light poles and mailboxes run crooked across the sidewalk, all at angles to each other. I know tomorrow the angles will be different. I ask the man for his order.

At home, my parents watch the news every night. A new hobby. Before, they would binge old sci-fi shows after dinner, dad with a Moscow mule in one hand, mom with a pile of yarn and a cat on her lap, crochet needle twisting endlessly between her fingers. They were in the middle of Quantum Leap last I saw, and the original Battlestar Galactica before that.

Now they watch wide-eyed and awestruck at the ludicrous accusations politicians make against anyone they can think of – gays, scientists, NASA, Muslims, liberals, Obama, Satanists, China, Russia, Satan himself, God, Jeff Bezos.

“They’re nuts!” Dad used to say emphatically about people he couldn’t understand. “She’s absolutely, totally nuts!” he once exclaimed about Sarah Palin.

Now he mutters, “The world is fucked,” beneath the cheery jingle of a yogurt commercial and hardly dares to breathe. His shadow, like everyone else’s, is smaller than it used to be, but unlike everyone else’s, it doesn’t even try to imitate his form, and instead follows him around as a small circle, like a soccer ball.

When I pass by the living room, it lays at his side like a cat. On his other side Patches, the tortoiseshell calico, is curled against him. For a moment they look identical.

“Hi, hon!” Mom says from the chair. “How was work?”

The ten o’clock news has just ended and on TV John Oliver cracks a joke about Putin, but in his eyes, I can see his heart racing. There are no more distractions.

In my room, I boot up Steam and try to lose myself in a game where I’ve set the shadow rendering to High.

The next week, Japan makes an international announcement that the mass in the sky is indeed another Earth. Or rather, a Dark Earth, made up of our shadows.

“It really does make you think of an anime,” says lead researcher Maruko Tokugawa.

When the news breaks, news outlets can’t help making ‘dark side of the moon’ puns. There is still no explanation as to why the shadows no longer obey the laws of light or how only parts of them could be taken, but we are assured research is being done.

Rumors fly that they aren’t our shadows at all, but creatures or aliens that exist in shadow form and have latched onto us. Maybe they’re waiting to strike or maybe they’re slowly killing us already and we can’t tell yet. Riots are everywhere as people scream about the end of the world. A veritable army of 4chan-ers and Redditors organize a storm on Area 51, guns and all. Most of them are killed and the rest arrested when the U.S. Army unexpectedly streams out of the compound to defend government territory.

I’m pouring steamed milk into a cappuccino when I hear the news. I wish I could be phased. A sick, hard lump forms in my stomach like an olive pit, and I can’t help agreeing with my dad.

“The world is fucked.”

Across the counter, the old woman in the pink coat agrees. “But it’s always been fucked, dear. It’s just everyone can see it now.” Her shadow is pooled in her arms today. Behind her, a man’s shadow runs perpendicular to it, though the light source is the same. The darkest part is pooled in his chest.

I pass the coffee to her over the counter. The charm of my bracelet sways near the surface, but my shadow doesn’t follow. The darkest part is directly beneath my palm.

Psychics claim to be able to read your shadow like an aura or a lifeline. They claim it’s a chakra thing, or a zodiac thing, or a psyche thing. One tells me I’m afraid of what’s to come. Another tells me I’ll be happier if I stop thinking so much. My therapist agrees and prescribes me fluoxetine, which I don’t fill.

At home, Mom greets me the same way she does every day.

“Hi, hon! How was work?” She’s cooking dinner. Her shadow hovers behind her, intersecting with mine, which is in front of me. I can barely see the parts that aren’t touching mine, but I can tell it’s darkest at her feet today. I wonder what the psychics would say about that.

I tell her about Area 51 and she tells me that Brexit proceedings have been put on hold indefinitely, and something else about the UN. I’m not listening because I’m watching the shadows of the ceiling fan blades move in different directions from each other, creating a dizzying pattern across my and Mom’s overlapping shadows. Somehow, I feel closer to her, as if we’re sharing a secret.

Three days later a headline runs reading, ‘Florida Man Arrested After Stealing Every Lightbulb From Lowes, Shooting Out 17 Street Lights, And Crashing Car into Utility Billing Office.’ When the officers cuff him, he feverishly explains that without light there would be no shadows left to worry about. Drugs are found in his car. Go figure.

A forest fire breaks out in Yellowstone, darkening the surrounding skies. It garners approximately ten seconds of news coverage before the topic shifts to international discussions about the global state of emergency. More and more theories pop up about the Dark Earth, and the political hearings are endless. A team of world-renowned astrophysicists and mathematicians have formed a task force and every telescope, satellite, and sensor on Earth is pointed at the shadow world in the sky. The readings stream in, but they are close to unintelligible. The greatest minds in the world are baffled.

Gun violence and church attendance rates are at an all-time high. Mom begs me to quit my job, but I refuse to let hysteria dictate how I spend my time. Across town someone blows up the DMV with firecrackers in a display of displeasure with the government.

As I hand a coffee over the counter to the old woman in the pink coat, I can’t help wondering why they didn’t target city hall three streets over. The charm of my bracelet scrapes against the countertop as it swings but my shadow doesn’t follow it. Today it is darkest beneath my elbow. Outside the streetlights shine warmly in the cold rain and the shadows of the drops on the windows are darker than they should be.

A month later, North Korea fires a nuke at the Dark Earth. No one can quite figure why, but apparently the hope is that the shadows will come back if the thing is exploded. NASA does not support this hypothesis but remains carefully neutral over the whole thing. As we watch the news and the sky and wait for something to happen, I can’t help but notice the moon is the biggest it’s ever been.

When the bomb detonates there is no need for a news anchor in a red blazer to urge us to take cover. The Earth shakes under our feet and I hear Dad, crouched beneath the dining table, utter his favorite line while clutching a Moscow mule. Beside him, his shadow wriggles in the light and when I look again, it’s the size of a tennis ball.

We’ll be back next week with more weird stories.

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