Character Sketch - Fiction - Andalus Colain Wardson - Let's see where this goes [Wardson:1]

I spend a lot of time in the dark. You would think after the years of walking in the shadows that I would be used to it by now. I don't think that is likely to ever be the case. What I see in the dark is not that which "regular" people willingly see. They catch glimpses of it and their mind frantically scrambles to make sense of those momentary visions. It becomes the stuff of legend, it is the seed from whence nightmares are born. To see these shadows without understanding them and accepting them is also the place where madness dwells. Those who are unwilling to accept a simple basic truth will instead momentarily gibber in fear and their mind will be for but a moment shattered and grasping frantically for something that is known, familiar and that makes sense. Sometimes the vision lasts longer than a "normal" mind can handle and all that is left is a raving husk in a strait jacket locked somewhere in a padded room. Fortunately, most cases are shorter and they are explained away as "seeing things", "having a fever", "bad food", "being dosed in a drink from a bar", or as history has so commonly done it has led to religion.

I am not normal. I didn't know this for a long time. I thought that what I saw in the shadows was normal. I didn't try to put a label on them. I just saw the shadows, watched them, and treated them just like "normal" people would treat watching flies, birds, butterflies, and moths. They were there and they were part of the normal ecosystem of the world.

I was a ward of the state as my parents... well really, I can't say much about my parents. I didn't know them. My earliest memories all took place in various state run orphanages. My name itself was odd. I knew this as I was certainly teased about my name. I don't know quite where this name came from. My first name was Andalus and I was equally fine with going with Andy, or Dallas depending upon what people chose to call me. With an odd name you quickly learned to not be too attached to the true name you bear. Only those who you are closest to actually matter when it comes to a name. As an orphan I learned as most orphans do the heart ache of becoming close to people to only have them leave.

Whomever it was that gifted or cursed me with my name also gave me a middle name. That name was Colain. I would play mental games about this name growing up when I saw how people would torture and tease over Andalus. So as they would come up with Andy, and Dallas, I took to the mental game of what I could do with Colain. With that came my mental names Cole, or Lain. I liked to imagine myself having different personalities depending upon which aspect of my name I wanted to inhabit. I wasn't a mental patient with multiple personality disorders, this was something I willingly chose to do. For me it was a mental exercise. It was like putting on different clothes or costumes.

My surname of Wardson I've always thought came from me being a male ward of the state. For now let's just assume that is the case.

I don't know why I perceive shadows different than other people. As I grew older I would realize that I was getting information about places by watching the shadows, and sometimes I could learn things about people by the shadows that would bleed off of them and take on a life of their own. I didn't fear shadows. I did not try to label them. I simply accepted them as part of reality. Later I would begin to speculate that the reason other people didn't see them is because their mind would try to label them and force them to fit into what they perceived as reality. It would cause great fear in them.

I had witnessed people screaming and backing away rapidly from shadows and then listened to them talk about seeing "ghosts", or "shadow men", etc. These things they labeled did sometimes fit what they encountered if a label must be given. Yet sometimes that was not even close to what had actually been there. That was simply the convenient description their mind that was dancing around insanity eventually settled on in order to let them calm and be comfortable with their reality again. What I witnessed during their times of madness taught me much. People make shadows, and they don't know it. Those shadows can be almost mindless, but sometimes they can have a very distinct purpose and the person that gave them birth has no idea of their existence. I do. I see them. It is not something my mind shuts off like it does theirs.

There have been a few occasions where I envy their ignorance when I see something that happens to pass by that I know didn't come from a person. Those things cause a weight on the world. I mentally picture a bowing of reality as a ball rolling on cloth that sags as this horrible immense thing goes by. It is to me like Einstein's demonstrations of warped space time and the representation of gravity. These shadows seem to have a different force, but to me it seems to warp things as well as it moves by.

The older I became the more I realized how unusual I was. I still have not really met anyone that sees them all the time. I've met people claiming to speak to the dead, and be mediums and such. I could watch them and see their clumsy interactions with the shadows, and how they seemed to occasionally be able to do things with that shadow world. They just didn't know, for even they would react in fear when they accidentally would get a glimpse of the shadows and their mind would go through the all too familiar wild flapping of wings as it sought to explain what they saw. So often did I hear the words Satan, Demons, and other things when such events occurred. These labels never seemed to fit for me, but they did seem to offer the people comfort and often were one of the quick paths to justifying to their own mind what they had seen.

I've met people that study these stories of glimpses. I've read their books. It at first was amusing at how they would write about seeing a dark thing and they would say what they thought it might be. Whatever they would say would of course be based upon whatever limited knowledge they themselves had with which to explain things. Sometimes it was very simple and generally based in some religious terms, and occasionally it was very intricate. Yet I could see it all the time, and that amusement faded and lost its luster after I saw this time and time again.

I began to see most literature on the unknown as a written form of the struggle I see whenever the person is babbling and incoherent upon first perceiving something dark. Their mental grasping for firm foundation leads them to look for any way out of the madness and this leads to speculations. They will sometimes have a gift with words and will write down these experiences as well as their speculations about what it means. The problem is they so often after time forget that it was a speculation. I've seen little pseudo-cults form around these speculations. Sudden interest in new age and occult shops where they go and read more books built on more speculations. That is the path some people take. Others are scared enough it is often to church they run. My opinion with my constant observation is that this is much the same as those who seek the new age and occult shops simply more entrenched, wide spread, and tradition. I learned to leave them to this and keep my mouth shut.

Some of the things I have seen I do not believe are good for the world. I realized at some point if people could not see them then how could they be expected to fight them. Sometimes depending upon which name I am wearing I might decide it is my duty to do something about these things.

In this age when the news is more fanciful than most fiction it seems I have a lot of work to do. I am seeing more and more reference to the Shadow Government. The people they are referring to might indeed be such a thing, as that I cannot tell you. I will tell you that the people using such terms truly have no idea what truly lurks in the shadows.

Thus, begins my tale. I've learned a lot, and seen many things. I may even get a chance to share some of these tales. One thing is for certain I have a lot to learn.

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END OF THIS STORY (for now): I had this burning in me to be written tonight. It may be the seed of some further interesting stories. I had a character sketch bouncing around in my head and I kept thinking "I might write about this some time", but it wouldn't leave me alone. So I stopped what I was doing and gave it life now. I hope those of you on steemit that read it enjoy it.