Event Horizon

He wasn’t sure when it began. He noticed it in the fall, when shadows started to fade with the sun. His didn’t. Instead, it grew darker, fuller, more luxuriant. Everywhere he went, his surroundings grew brighter while his shadow swelled, gulping darkness like wine.

The contrast sharpened as the days went on, the landscape fading to a pallid, washed-out whiteness while he and his shadow became ever more indistinct. His touch left objects shimmering with a luminescence he could never possess. The world attenuated, stretching upward toward sublimation. He remained behind, a dark blot in a pit he’d dug himself.