The Shadow & The Reason

By M. A. Coffern

A collection of short stories for all readers thirteen years and older. These stories range from the darkly mysterious to the quietly hopeful. Stories of creators haunted by their creations, life finding a way, and a young girl trapped on an island with a duplicitous cave bear. An inventor trapped in their invention for eternity. A shadow arriving to receive a reason. An incomprehensible mechanism and its doomed creator. All these and more lie within.

There are moments of suspense, angst, darkness, and hope all wrapped up into one short collection. The Shadow & The Reason provides a new experience for every reader, every time they open to the first page. Even the font used for each story is as different as the characters themselves. The first publication by this author, The Shadow & The Reason is a new way of writing and enjoying a classic form of short story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. A. Coffern
• Release date: Jun 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223386308

M. A. Coffern

Matt Coffern is an author, comedian, and storyteller from West Texas, now living in Los Angeles. He has written stories, sketches, and screenplays since he was a child. One day, he may even get paid for one.

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To my family, in lieu of grandchildren

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Contents

The Blind

A Giant Sleeps

The Traveler

A Boy

The Island

The Noisemakers

The Shadow and The Reason

One Page

The Test

Mechanization

The Blind

Keep them closed. Don’t open for a second. Those who see are blind. Those who see The Blind. I must not see. I must be blind. The world is theirs now, its beauty found only in memories.

I remember the world. The lush green trees, blue waters, and red rocks of the mountains at sunset. My childhood was spent surrounded by color and light. Everything taken for granted. Colors. Emotions. The beauty of a white moon. Truly, these things are appreciated only once they are gone.

Living in the memories helps distract from reality. A childhood spent running through colors, feeling the yellow sun, the scrapes from the red rocks, the cool blue waters of the stream. Now everything has faded to black. The final color. A combination of everything into its purest form, its darkest.

A childhood squandered. A cloudless day, sun shining, breeze blowing. An arrogant child running through the mosaic forest. The birds and animals cheering the child on in their pursuit of imagination. The unrelenting pursuit of a fantastical world.

The cool blue stream. I remember drinking. The green trees. I remember feeling. The red rocks. I remember burning. Memories before The Blind. The deliverance of mankind. The next revolution. A way to see into the future, to see the past. A device that could grant the type of sight reserved for God.

This was the promise. This was the reason. This was the mistake. The Blind was unpredictable. It was sentient and knew its purpose. It started off helpful, it started off kind. The synthetic appendages seemed grotesque yet inviting. The eyes of The Blind were oval shaped and multi-colored, a collection of Mandelbrot’s continuously falling through their cycles. A promise to see beyond the horizon. A beckoning new world you would never wish to leave. You were enraptured. You were safe. You were enslaved.

The eyes were the first thing you noticed. It was impossible not to. The eyes distracted you from the gooey, misshapen mass that was its body. An amalgamation of mistakes. The unfortunate refuse of past experiments conjoined with the power of quantum computing.

The sinew of its muscles contained within fleshy cables. It’s not quite machine, not quite life. The Blind exists between our definitions of both. The robotic shape of a canine, quiet of an owl, angelic grace of an eagle trapped between the two. The torso would contort and twist to allow the eyes to snap to attention at the slightest sensation. The ribbed bands of metal supported its motion, bipedal or no. The gooey lubricant leaked out of every pore, shielding the body, powering the eyes. The mass seems to move as if in pain. Creeping slowly, until looked upon.

Feeling the sense of eyesight, the finesse of a mother protecting her newborn would spring forth from its oozing mass and backward knees. The silent hum of its eyes would get nearer and nearer. By the time you finished drinking from the stream and prepared to open your eyes, it would be upon you. And there it would stop. Waiting, patiently, for the contact you can never bestow upon it.

This is my world now. With arms outstretched, feeling through the green trees and red rocks. Desperately clawing for the way home. Lost to the world of men. Lost to the world of sight. Lost.

The only sound the hum of oblivion. The animals long since evacuated. The memories of the world, the only respite from the blackness. Touch is to see. Seeing is to end. Stumbling, grasping, falling, waiting.

Eventually they will open. Eventually I will succumb.

But not yet.

The Blind must wait. The Blind will wait.

I will remain blind.

A Giant Sleeps

AGiant sleeps. A Giant has slept for generations. All