I remember when the fog rolled in. It arrived quickly. One moment I could just make it out over horizon and the next I was in it. I reached out to touch it, thinking I could somehow hold it in my hand, feel its contours. It wasn’t a normal fog. I understood that immediately. The color was different. It was mostly gray with a subtle hint of red. The experience of being in it was almost complete blindness to anything more than a few feet in the distance, and you got the sense that somewhere in the far distance there was a red spotlight giving it an ominous hue. I thought I could get to the light source at first, like someone was playing an elaborate trick on us, and I would unlock its mystery if I just kept plowing ahead towards what I perceived to be the source. I had walked straight through a couple of neighboring towns, logging at least a half dozen miles, with no change in color and no mystery unlocked before I gave up for good.
A group of government scientists and officials gave an emergency press conference that was broadcast on every television channel, prominent news outlet, and social media app. They assured the public there was nothing to worry about. I didn’t understand the specifics of what they said, but my takeaway was that it was some sort of novel weather pattern that created one super cloud that stretched across half the country and growing by the minute. They didn’t explain why there was a reddish hue, though I learned later that different people saw different colors. My neighbor swore it was more blue than anything else. I still think he was wrong and there was more to the color thing. The officials said they had run various tests and confirmed it was completely harmless to humans and other animals. Their hypothesis at the time was that it would eventually blow out over the ocean and dissipate into nothing over a period of a few days. Since the fog was so thick, all high speed travel, except rail, was stopped. The only people on the roads or in the air were thrill seekers, military personnel, scientists, and doomsday conspiracists on the run.
I waited it out at home. After 78 days it finally did thin out to the point where visibility was mostly restored. I went back to work just the same, like nothing ever happened. It’s amazing how something all-consuming can be around so long that everyone just wants to move past it and stop talking about it. It became this thing we lived with and didn’t acknowledge. The fog never went away completely though. The remnants were always there; the sun only visible as a blurred orange disc; the fog more like a mist in consistency and feel.
Sometimes when I wake up in a hotel room I think about the fog. There is this brief moment that I’m not quite sure where I am or what I’m doing. Hotels are known for that I think. They look like no place and any place at the same, a simulacrum of a business traveler’s weigh station in our collective imagination. We have a keen sense of what it should look and feel like, even if we’ve never been there. I have, am, and I can tell you it’s very much what you imagine.
I take a nice hot shower and wear the clothes I’ve obviously selected for this trip. When I pass the front desk I say hi to the staff and look for the little shelf where most hotels keep a stockpile of pamphlets detailing the local attractions. I walk around the lobby a few times, open a few unmarked doors, and can’t find them. I get the sense the staff is watching me with curiosity so I go outside to lessen the sting of embarrassment welling up inside me. I watch as a group of men and women come streaming out the door behind me. They have a certain air about them, a way of being in the world that triggers a deep sense of belonging inside me. These are my people. I can feel it in my bones. They are reason I’m in this place. I fall in line and exchange knowing glances and ironic eye rolls. I don’t know where we’re going. Judging by the glazed look in people’s eyes it’s probably a chore to be here. I never pretend to know what’s going on in people’s lives. Loss, love, anxiety, fear, sadness, happiness, irritation, loneliness, whatever mixture of feelings lies there beyond those eyes is something I’ll never understand. I suspect no one knows I’m lost either. It’s mutual I think. We abide by not wanting to know.
When we get to a small convention center I fall in line. I get to the front and hand over my ID and receive a badge in return. I turn to survey the crowd moving in all directions towards what look like different meeting rooms and consider my options when I’m whisked away by a group that I suspect know me. We go into one of the rooms and sit together in the back. A couple of people make small talk about the comforts of the hotel, jet lag, families in their hometowns. I work up the courage to ask some basic questions when the speaker takes the stage and the room goes silent. I try to pay attention the best I can. I act like I’m taking notes like those around me, nodding along with the crowd to what I presume are important points. I even giggle along to inside jokes I don’t understand. I peek at my watch and realize I’ve been in the session for over an hour and it doesn’t seem to be ending soon. I excuse myself and walk the endless hallways in search of a restroom. When I find one, I sit on the toilet for what feels like an inordinate amount of time, trying to piece together where I am, but my mind keeps coming back to the fog.
I leave the restroom and go outside to see it. I study the people coming in and out, stern looks on their faces, watching each other without acknowledging that’s what they are doing. I think that maybe I should be judging more than just searching for hints about myself. I think it’s part of the reason why we’re all here, to size each other up in some way. I dismiss the notion quickly.
I resolve to take a walk, thinking that maybe the fresh air can restore me to my old self. Mostly I just want to be in the fog. There is something rejuvenating about being caught up in it, everything refracted by its presence that I feel comfortable in the skin I can’t describe with words and understand only in feeling.
The next morning I find myself on a plane home and yesterday’s events play back in my mind. I can’t believe I was so lost. I know exactly who I am and why I was there. I’m not sure if I knew then and I’m remembering it wrong now out of deep seated anxiety or it all happened the way I feared. Tomorrow I’ll feel out the situation at work to see which it is. The first thing I’ll do when I get home is go for a nice long walk in the fog to thoroughly clear my head.
GLAZ 