Summary

“Without a Shadow of Doubt: My First Lesson in Art and Film” - In first-person narration, the narrator recalls a childhood obsession with shadows that he shared with his younger brother Njinju. He describes how they tried to chase their own shadows, and to run away from them. They investigated the properties of other shadows, belonging to other people and to animals or objects. He also describes how, as he and his brother observed shadows, they became able to arrange their lives according to time as defined by the size and length of shadows. And he comments on how his mother warned him and his brother to be careful of a man who, she and others believed, could hurt people by cutting their shadows with a knife.

Eventually, the narrator says, he and his...