Spinning Shadows into Stone

In this week’s story, Sarena Ulibarri weaves magic and art together for her Sunday Morning Transport debut. ~ Julian and Fran, March 16, 2025

March comes to you with Sunday Morning Transport stories by Stephanie Burgis, Eric Smith, Sarena Ulibarri, and Leah Cypess. As always, the first story of the month is free to read.

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Spinning Shadows into Stone

by Sarena Ulibarri

You would rather stay hidden, but there’s so much talk around the monsters you’ve turned to stone that it’s tempting to reveal your secret. There could be money—a chance to not pillage your roommates’ leftovers, a chance to not have roommates anymore. Fame, too—the recognition you never received from your real artwork, or from any damn thing you’ve ever attempted in your life. The monsters can give you those things. All you have to do is step forward and say, “Yes, these are mine.”

Guerilla Sculptor Leaves Statues Throughout City, the headlines read. And Officials Baffled by Stealthy Installation of Public Art. Neighborhoods lobby to prevent their removal, though why someone wants to see an eight-foot-tall grotesque every time they leave their apartment, you have no idea. A metal band from Denmark flies in to film their next music video in front of the one in the subway terminal. The local arts council partners with a wealthy influencer who says he’s willing to fund the next installation—in a less poverty-stricken part of town, of course—if only the artist will reveal themself.

So you take a cold shower and find your cleanest dirty clothes, getting ready to march yourself down to the cultural affairs office. A new monster peeks from inside the bathroom mirror. You lift your phone, camera on, and it darts out of sight. It’s the camera that turns them to stone. It took a couple of times for you to realize that’s how it works, and it’s those overgrown mistakes that are getting all the attention.

You stride confidently into the arts council, sure that this is the day your life changes. Yet, to your surprise, they don’t welcome you with open arms. Two other artists have also stepped forward to take credit. One brought with them a sketchbook of drafts, the other a small clay replica of the monster, pinched together as “evidence” of a preplanned design. And here you are, empty-handed, with nothing but a link to a DeviantArt portfolio that isn’t even under your real name.

No one seems to notice that the face of the imposter’s miniature isn’t arranged quite right, that the tail in the sketches is bifurcated like a traditional devil, instead of clubbed like the statues. You scoff at the time these people put into their fabrications, wonder why they’d want to put so much effort into building a thing that only takes you a few seconds to manifest.

But it’s your word against theirs. Prove it comes the challenge from the arts council. The pictures on your phone of the monsters are nothing but smeary blurs, no proof at all. You can’t conjure one on command because you don’t understand anything about what draws them forth from the shadows. The monsters, like the muse, don’t come when called, don’t appear on a set schedule. And the next one you see could very well eat you alive.

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You’ve always seen them. For a long time you assumed everyone else did, too, what with all the stories of monsters in closets and under beds, ghosts lurking in old buildings. Perhaps other children do see them, but instead of fading along with other childhood fantasies, for you they appeared more frequently as you grew up. In high school, one leaped out of the bathroom mirror. You tried to fight it, but it grew until it swallowed you whole. You awoke on the floor a bloody mess, unable to explain the experience to the family member who found you.

Draw what you think you saw, the school counselor encouraged, but you refused. People always said you were a talented artist, but you’d never drawn anything original, more content to copy something good than to try and probably fail to make something meaningful yourself.

For a while you learned to avoid the monsters, keeping away from shadows and mirrors. This whole city is shadows, though, every window a potential mirror.