Entwined in This Infinity

7. Mist - Gerry

Fog is a rare occurrence around here. It’s the first time in your life you’ve seen a huge swathe of it before, actually, and you’re giddy to get out in it as soon as you get home from work. You throw on your big, frumpy raincoat, the one your friend says that you look like a little kid in – not that you give a different impression any other time.

At the edge of town, there’s a plain stretching on for five miles. It’s a quiet oasis of scratchy knee-length grass that leads down to the shore and a small abandoned lighthouse. You’ve never been inside the lighthouse, because it is creepy and boring, and you do not plan to change that today. All you want to do is sprint and tumble in the plain for a few hours, maybe call Roy and invite him out.

You whoop and barrel into the grass, tripping over your feet in your eagerness. Hidden rocks and rabbit holes don’t help much either, but when you level out to a good pace they are unnoticeable as you fly through the brush.

It is deathly cold outside, you realize as the arctic air bites at your cheeks and exposed hands. You should have brought gloves, earmuffs, or at least your warm faux fur boots. Running, you can’t feel the difference and press on into the mysterious gloom of the fog.

Eventually, your breath comes to you with more difficulty, muscles and lungs burning with agreeing persistence that maybe you should slow down. You don’t, of course, though your throat is tight from the freezing air so that you can barely breathe in at all. You don’t stop until an unexpected dip appears in your path and you fall attempting to leap over it.

The ground feels like a slab of metal, unyielding and icy. It is cushioned by the tall grass, but that isn’t a comfort as the blades poke at your face and hands, tinged in frost.

Your breath puffs weakly against the might of the fog above. It is close, you realize. It is all-encompassing and cloaking. It hides everything from view, pressing down until its weight is on your chest. You can’t see anything past the few grass stems hovering by your face. It’s as if everything is gone.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it,” you sing-song, chuckling. But you can’t hear it well. It’s filtered down into a hushed murmur, leaving you certain you said something but unsure of what it was.

It’s getting more and more difficult to breathe, despite the fact you stopped running a while ago. You’ve lain here for a while. Your fingers are chunks of ice and your face is a numb sculpture. Frost is forming on your eyelashes as you blink. You breathe slower, easier.

The fog is heavy and opaque. Maybe the sky was always like this, you think, gray and apathetic, a crushing weight. It feels better to close your eyes and shut it out.