Foggy Walks

Walking down a foggy, well-lit street is a dream. I walk and walk but I feel like I'm floating. I can see dim shapes but can never tell what they are. I just know they're there. I see disembodied lights zoom past, and they sound like they should be cars, but I cannot see the cars and the sound is a mile away.

There are people. Or, I assume they're people. I can't tell if they're walking towards me or away from me. I cannot tell who they are, or what they look like until we are on top of each other. Then I see the white glint of eye contact and a toothy smile. Then they're gone, and I can't even make out what the button on their backpack reads. Then it is just me, and one person walking away.

I jump as a streetlight turns off. It's the streetlight that always turns off, or on, as I walk past it. Every day, like Dumbledore with his Put Outer, the light turns off, or on. Even in a foggy dreamland, the light goes off, suddenly and surprisingly.

The person ahead of me is gone. I can't tell where they went, or could have gone in the few seconds I was glaring at the streetlight. Everything is gone. All I can see of Hogwarts is the foggy outline of a giant H, which I assume is a goalpost from the rugby field. I cannot even see the familiar lights of the library or the smokestack from the power plant. All I can see is streetlights and the lights of Mary Titus' living room, where I imagine she is curled up in a chair with a mug of tea, reading southern feminist literature, listening to her cockatoo squawk because that's what Mary Titus does.

More carless lights drive by. One pair of lights are playing My Sharona loudly. Dogs bark, worlds away. I cough, and even that sounds like it is a million miles from my throat. I am floating. The splashing from my boots in the puddles are a distant lakeshore.

I do not feel anything, or hear anything, or see anything but distance.

And that is why I love fog.