Fog

(written sometimes in the late 1990s)

My wife’s carsickness forces us to stop at a seaside resort we never intended to visit.

A big city kid, I have a horror of small towns.

I not only dread the chill reception residents tend to offer strangers, but I also need the hustle and bustle of city life

Crickets and howling dogs hardly satisfy me as much as the rumble of trains and the wail of sirens.

Even as we drive through the town, I get an odd feeling, and hear a whispered voice in my head saying, “Go away.”

Once settled into the hotel my wife feels good enough for us to wander a bit.

The rustic little village with its Victorian buildings and horse drawn carriages makes me nostalgic, not for my own past, but for a past I wish I had lived.

The people prove friendlier than I expected, wishing us thanks for purchases we made and telling us to come again soon as we eased out of their doors.

While still not comfortable with the crickets, I feel more at east.

Near dusk when we reach the hotel again, the clerk advises us not to wander out after dark.

“It’s very dangerous you not being from around here and all,” he says.

To complicate matters, my wife’s illness seems to have returned.

While I believe the clerk’s advise is sound, I see that the sun is still visible. So I figure I can make it to a drug store and back before darkness comes.

The minute I go out the door, I am struck by a feeling of intense evil, and I wonder how the quaint place I saw by daylight could seem so demonic by twilight.

I hurry to the store and back as fast as possible, only to discover the room empty and my wife gone.

I snatch up the phone and call the clerk, who tells me he didn’t see her but wants to know if he should call the police.

I say no and take off after her. Once outside, the fog has settled filling the courtyard with mist out of which strange sounds emerge.

Never before have I felt so vulnerable or so worried over my wife.

I brace myself for the worst and push on, hoping to find her before something terrible occurs.

No landscape seems so alien as this one does. Odd faces appear at windows and doors. I hear people calling. One of these is my wife, and I call back.

I am inside and outside myself at the same time, as if what is happening on the street is happening inside my head and somehow projected onto the world.

A voice talks to me, telling me to be at peace with myself.

I tell him, I can’t find my wife.

The voice says, “you never can. You have to learn to let her go.”

“But I love her and she loves me,” I argue.

“But you’re dead, Sam, she isn’t. Let her go.”

And the fog swirls me in thicker waves. I am sad and alone, crying my wife’s name, but she doesn’t hear me.

Email to Al Sullivan