∆ Alice and Bill’s daughter Helena reads aloud from Robert Louis Stevenson.

My Shadow

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,

And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow—

Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;

For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,

And he sometimes gets so little that there’s none of him at all.

He hasn’t got a notion of how children ought to play,

And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.

He stays so close beside me, he’s a coward you can see;

I’d think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,

I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;

But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,

Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

Wendy: I found something that belongs to him.

Mrs. Darling: And what’s that?

Wendy: His shadow.

∆ Other than Helena’s dark-clad parents, the most prominent shadow in the room is that projected by the bed-side lamp onto the red-framed blackboard. Notice the blue and red dancing clowns are echoed by the blue and red white figures on the white cube of paper. A bear on the left and eye-wear on the right, 3D-glasses and a party mask. Twin princesses in red occupy the corners. In the north right outer corner is a  red indian face, (or is it a carriage?) and below him, curiously a white tortoise. Also mysterious is the ambiguous animal floating directly above the white square (which we can assume as a symbolic stand-in for the projected movie screen) … is it a sleeping tiger?

Sleeping Vertigo Shining