Light and Shadow

The glass globe shattered on the balcony floor with a sound like thousands of tiny bells ringing all at once.

Out flew all the little shadows: the butterfly's shadow, the key's shadow, the flower's shadow, everything that had been inside it. They flew up into the air and danced and filled the grey sky again.

High above, the golden rim around the black sun began to widen again. It shone and grew, and grew, until the black sun itself began to turn grey, then silver, then a warm white.

King Dusk sat down on the balcony floor, hugging his long knees, his smoky crown shrunk as small as the smoke from a candle. He didn't look like a king at that moment. He looked like a tired old shadow, missing his friend.

Yazan walked quietly over to him and sat down beside him. He placed the drawing in his hands.

"For fifty years we walked together," the king said softly. "Every sunset. And he sang to me. He used to say I was the tallest shadow in the city, and the most beautiful. Then he was gone... and nobody remembered him. I thought that if I made people see shadows, they'd see him too."