NYU Black Renaissance Noire NYU Black Renaissance Noire V. 16.1 | Page 8

Without a Shadow
of a Doubt:

By

NGŨGĨ WA THIONG’O

PHOTOGRAPHY BY LABUERO “RUN BOY RUN” CC BY-ND 2.0 HTTPS://WWW.FLICKR.COM/PEOPLE/9458417@N03/

My First Lesson in Art and Film.

Njinjũ, my younger
brother claimed he could
catch his own shadow.
Older by a year, I was
not about to admit that
I was any less able.

A rivalry of sorts grew into a sibling
race to be the first to achieve the feat.
With the grim but eager determination
of bounty hunters, we set out to
capture our shadows. They proved very
cunning. They would run away from
us, but annoyingly kept the same speed
as we did, accelerating when we did,
slowing down when we did, and
stopping when we did.

6

We decided to run away from them.
The same pattern ensued. They
followed us, doing whatever we did,
literally at the same time and speed
that we did it. Let us carry a load on
our heads, in our hands, on our
backs or drive a wheel, our shadows
would come up with exact replica.
On moonlight nights they were
there, walking behind us, in front
of us, besides us, mocking our failure
to turn them into captives.
We escaped them only when it became
dark, initially a matter of pride at our
doing, but as soon as we sat by the
fireside, they were back. Alas, it was not
we who had escaped them, but rather
they who had hidden in the darkness
only to reappear suddenly and
dramatically at storytelling time.

They played on the walls, on our faces,
and depending on the flames, they
would actually dance. Sometimes they
would multiplicate themselves, and
continue mocking us in moves and
waves that seemed choreographed to
achieve maximum mockery.
Their disappearance in the darkness,
however, gave us an idea on how to get
rid of them. Under a big tree or thicket,
the bush shadow swallowed ours; but
as soon as we moved out, ours were
back with us. Not sure who had tricked
whom, we did not feel genuine triumph
at the temporary success. We decided
to study shadows. You cannot deal with
an adversary you don’t know. We set
about it with the meticulous care of
research scientists.

Trees, cows, goats, cats, frogs, insects,
even wood and stones had shadows.
Cars and airplanes too. Everything
carried a shadow. People’s faces had
little shadows under their eyes, ears, or
shades that simply crossed their faces
depending on how and where they sat
and looked relative to the source of the
light. There were a few discernible
differences. While the shadow of a
vehicle ran besides it, the one from an
airplane in the sky ran on the earth.
Same for birds; the body flew in the
sky, the shadow ran on the ground,
but so swiftly that we did not even
think of attempting to catch them.
The opposite end were the shadows of
plants and stones. Unlike those of
flying objects, which seemed able to
detach themselves from the objects in
the sky, those that belonged to plants
did not move away, although they
lengthened or shortened, depending
on the time of day.