The Fog

I had a funny little bit of an idea sitting around in my files: a single rambly paragraph with an interesting personality behind it. I wrote it a few years ago, I think, with half an intention of using it as a jumping-off point for some story or other. Well, now I've picked it up again and rewritten this idea as something a little more interesting. It's still standalone, but I may still come back to it to flesh out a future project one day. Who knows?

Now I expect you don't know it yet, being new here and all, but it gets terrible foggy up along the coast like we are. The fog rolls in off the water, you see, and settles in so strong that you can't see the neighbor's house down the way. And then you can't see the road out front of the house. And then you can't even see the bushes a yard from your own window. You have to watch out for it, 'cause it comes in quick; I know of folks as got lost on their way home and were later found miles away, half-starved and raving.

It's a thick fog, the kind folks call a pea souper, though why that is I don't know, seeing as it sure doesn't look like peas to me. It likes to linger, anyhow, and everything gets dark and gloomy, as though it was always coming on night. It gets cold, too, with all that damp. That's all fog is, isn't it, just solid damp? Eh? Well, you would know, I suppose.

Every time the fog comes rolling in, we all shut ourselves up in our homes and hide. Drapes closed, fires going, waiting for the sun to come back. There's no going out in it, of course, so we just sit around and wait. Some folks knit, or read, or play cards. I usually catch up on the indoor chores I don't get 'round to otherwise, sweeping and such. I suppose we could ring each other up on the telephone, now I think on it, but nobody ever does. We're all too busy trying to ignore that darn fog, I guess. Not necessarily succeeding, mind. No matter how high and toasty our fires are, the cold and damp always manages to find a way into my old bones.

Some days, we get so caught up in ignoring the fog that we don't even notice it leave. I'll look up one moment and suddenly notice the sun coming in around the drapes where it hadn't done before. Why, just last fall there was a fog that stuck around so long I fell asleep, and young Thomas next door got sent to check I was alright! He's a good lad, young Thomas. More often, though, we'll know it's gone because the telephone starts ringing and folks want to talk to each other again. Strange, don't you think, how the weather makes us do things like that?

It's a queer fog, I'll warrant, but you get used to it soon enough.