Right now, as it so happens, only a minute remains before the lamp flashes back on. And if the silhouette is not there? You reject this thought out of hand. It is impossible. The silhouette cannot be one of the enclosure’s shadows, because you have mowed the enclosure’s shadows. Not the shadow, but the mower that has masticated the shadow: that is the only thing the silhouette could be.

Of course, if you were the owner, you might find ways of believing otherwise. Say, for instance, that by mowing the shadows you have simply freed them: that you liberated each nightmare from the cage that the thought structure made around it, or the cocoon that the spray paint made around it. If you were the owner, you might grow to rue right now, with ramping horror, the magnitude of your error. For you have accomplished nothing, or worse than nothing, by mowing the black shadows, you would think. You have simply unleashed their nightmares, disseminating their energies freely. So far from unghosting the site, you have unleashed the very ghosts upon the site. This is the thought that would cause you to bite the inside of your cheek right now, until it bled, and pound on your thigh with a panicked fist, internally cursing the lamplight to hurry, if you were the owner and thought as the owner thinks, and if you believed what he believes about the silhouette. If you believed every last thing that madman believes.

In the darkness of the yard, hanging inside the toolshed’s darker outline, the casing of the safety lamp is radiating orange warmth like a baking brick. If you were the owner, you would not be able to pry your eyes away. Because you would know what that cone of light is about to reveal: no silhouette beside the entryway, only a heart-stopping emptiness. For deep down you would also know—beyond a shadow of a doubt—that it is not and never was a push mower. It is a nightmare, and you have freed it. When the lamp flashes on, you will see this. The lamp flashes on.

The Bookcase

1.

From WBEZ Chicago it’s This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. I’m Ira Glass. Every week on our show of course we choose a theme, bring you different kinds of stories on that theme, and this week that theme is… ‘Over My Dead Body.’ Stories of regular people who want something so much, want one particular thing so badly… that they’re willing to fight to the death for it. Our show in four acts today, each of which starts with a thing and ends in a showdown for possession of that thing. Act 1, ‘The Will To Power’: in this act a family is torn apart by strange provisions in their parents’ will, devised as a practical joke from beyond the grave. Act 2, ‘Citation Needed’: how one writer decides to sit vigil over his Wikipedia page, once anonymous users begin revising it. Act 3, ‘Partially Furnished’: what happens when you have to fight your landlady, really physically fight her, for a piece of furniture that you both know is yours. Act 4, ‘The Magic Matzo’: a new short story from This American Life contributor Etgar Keret, about a very special dumpling and the lengths to which people are willing to go to get it. Four desirable objects, four ferocious showdowns—you don’t want to miss it. Stay with us.