Glimpsing Shadows: Affective Witnessing in Noctambules and “Of Ghosts and Shadows”

‘I am watching my lover’, begins Roxane Gay’s short story ‘Of Ghosts and Shadows’. In the opening scene, Marie, and her lover Am elie idly browse through a marketplace in Haiti. Since the two of them cannot openly show affection, they watch each other instead. Sneaking glances and brushing limbs, they have developed an entire system for visual caress. Practices of looking shift into the realm of bodily touch. Close since they were children, the lovers have many shared experiences: ‘We watched our fathers taken away for supporting free elections, we watched our brothers disappear into the countryside or the ocean’. The ‘we’ of these statements underscores their deeply entwined and parallel lives. They are united in shared practices of looking—of bearing witness.