Then, a subsequent experience can become a positive print of a shadowy negative in the mind. Understand. There were originally two Johns; a dark silhouette followed by an idea. The latter added detail, colour to the outline of the former. And then there was only one. In the not too distant past each time I thought of the first John the flat human shape of Peter Pan’s shadow leapt over the window sill of my imagination. Something about the way that shadow was folded up and placed inside a square object that may very well have been a drawer or toy box but that sticks in my mind as a suitcase. Folded up and placed inside some kind of luggage. You see, John’s shadow was always in my luggage, and no matter how far I ran or where I ended up, that shadow ended up there too. Even if I was certain that I had left it at home. Home. That place where John’s shadow sometimes rang the phone but more often did not—the real John being busy in some office somewhere in another city. One stupid wire connecting our breathing, our tense silences; our bodies occupying rooms that were foreign to the other.
