Shadow

By: Gargi Mehra

If I hadn’t birthed the little rock-goblin myself, I’d never have believed how annoying it could become. I’d looked past its wild spins, its teenage drama, and even its cooling phase.

No one said it would tail me every single moment. Why didn’t it ever try to become independent, to seek its own place in the sun?

It puffed up wider than its peers, and hogged all the credit for enabling the birth of life. So what if it steadied my tilt? I never asked for help.

It took me a trillion years, but I finally shook off the Moon.

© 2026. Gargi Mehra

Gargi Mehra is a writer, a computer engineer, and a mother. Her creative writing has appeared in several literary magazines online and in print. She lives with her husband and two children in Pune, India.

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