You are born with a second shadow. It lags behind, darker than yours. Your mother says it might be your grandfather’s ghost. Some friends suggest light therapy; others, exorcism. More you try outrunning it, longer it grows. By thirteen, it starts to whisper your name. By eighteen, it borrows it.
Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Masters Review, Pithead Chapel, and 100 Word Story, among other journals. His stories have been selected or nominated for such anthologies as the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. See more at sarpsozdinler.com.
