It was a pleasant hamlet that brought to mind one of those great American holidays spent in New England where the ocean breeze bats against soft white linens hanging on a line. The bay was blue, as bays tend to be, almost crystalline, and su
Surrounded with classic two-story homes that seemed at once ancient and ephemeral. If imagining a strong wind, one could picture them all toppling into the bay–their wooden skeletons disturbing the perfect waters below.
There were forested hills across the bay that housed an asylum. Its brick facade and tiny windows were visible even from a great distance. Unlike the houses, which would inevitably become muck, the asylum would be there forever. It would outlive its residents and the town and all of the docks. Someday the town would become nothing but that perfect patch of water and that massive building, filled with trees and growing vines.
In one of those flimsy houses, Annie dreamt of this demise every day, reminding herself that all of this, all of this, was entirely and utterly impermanent. On this particular morning, a heavy fog covered the town so that the water was nearly imperceptible from the cloying mist above. Annie woke up to a window soaked in gloom and imagined, for a moment, that she sat in a void somewhere in a distant universe. She smiled as she prepared for work.
She hated the town for its pleasantness. It was something that should make her happy, but she felt only deep anxiety because someday she’d be forced to leave or, worse, destined to stay. Every time she saw a piece of rotting wood or the rundown gas station, she wished even more for its end. Better yet, she longed for it to have never existed in the first place. It was an empty promise of what once was, what used to be, what could have been…if only.
Recently, Annie felt herself more drawn to this dilemma. While she cared for the family home out of obligation alone, leaving it still felt wrong. But she’d left so much lately, including the most meaningful connection she had ever known. Abandoning the house would be the final straw–the final goodbye to her idyllic town. The hamlet seemed to know and taunt her with this information. She was so stuck between regret and practicality that she could not perceive a way forward or a way back.
By the afternoon, the mist began to smell. Although she was in the back of the coffee shop, where the scent of grounds permeated strongest, the smell still carried to her through an open window. It was almost petrichor, the pleasant aroma after a first rain, but not quite. Beneath the deep, earthy scent there was a sourness. It left Annie and all of the coffee shop customers in similarly sour moods.
“I said no ice,” Betty insisted, even though her order had absolutely included ice.
“Are you sure you don’t carry poppy seed bagels? You had poppy seed bagels last month,” Reggie yelled.
“That was an everything bagel,” Annie snapped back.
With each snippy comment, Annie imagined and reimagined the town’s downfall. Perhaps there would be a sudden earthquake that ruined the foundations and made the entire earth slip into the bay. Maybe a massive storm would break all the windows and rip the doors off their hinges.
As closing time approached, Annie reorganized the shelves in the backroom. Caught up in her decision to move the Arabica coffee to a lower shelf, the insistent ring of the doorbell startled her. It was followed by a similarly insistent tapping on the countertop.
Annie stormed to the cash register, irritated that someone would want to buy coffee so late in the day.
“Hello, what do you want? We close in five minutes.”
“Just a small cup of coffee. Black.”
The voice was unlike anything she’d ever heard. It was light and soft, but there was a deepness just behind its breathy tones. It seemed practiced, as if someone was unfamiliar with how to use a human voice and, so, had to focus on each word. It prompted her to look up from the register and at its owner.
The person wore a black jacket and a black hat. Their eyes weren’t visible through their dark sunglasses. When she looked down, she noticed a cane in the person’s hand. That explained it.
Feeling guilty for being rude to a blind person, Annie corrected her tone.
“Would you like anything else?”
“No. Thank you.”
Annie watched as the coffee dripped into a to-go cup, uncomfortably aware of the person behind her. They hadn’t moved. When the machine was done, she rushed to hand over the coffee, nearly forgetting to ask for her money.
“That will be two dollars.”
“Of course.”
The figure rummaged through their pockets, handing Annie an assembly of coins. Pleased with this offering, they sat down at the nearest table.
Ever frustrated, Annie walked over to tell the person that they had to leave. Before she could get the chance, they asked, “Have you noticed the fog?”
“Yes,” Annie answered. “How did you? Sorry– that was rude.”
“Not rude. I can feel it. I can smell it.”
“I’ll say. It’s like dirty rain.”
Annie came closer to the customer. She couldn’t place their age. They looked both very young and very old, depending on the angle. For a reason she couldn’t explain, she felt the urge to pull up a chair and join them.
They sipped slowly. The mist smell was strong at this table. It made Annie uneasy.
“Do you like the smell?”
“Not really, no.”
“Hm,” the figure responded, taking another careful drink. “It’s a new smell. It’s different from all the other smells here.”
Annie thought of the strong scent of fish and brine and, inexplicably, sunshine, that normally filled her days. Maybe the fog smell wasn’t so bad after all.
“I guess that’s true. Are you from around here? I haven’t seen you before.”
“You could say that I am.”
The customer nodded towards a far window. Although Annie couldn’t see anything past the mist, she knew exactly where the customer meant.
“The asylum?”
She whispered the question.
The person nodded.
“Wow. I didn’t know that people could leave there. I mean, I thought it was high security. I’ve never met anyone who left there.”
“I can leave,” they said. After another sip, they stood up from the table and, using their cane, found the door. “I just haven’t needed to until now.”
Annie watched them walk away. They seemed to dissipate into the gray fog.
Back at home, Annie couldn’t shake the fog or the strange person at the coffee shop. Rather than a stable comfort, the asylum loomed over her as she got into bed. In her dreams, it beckoned her.
The next morning, the fog was somehow worse. The stench permeated through her walls and furniture. Rage ran through her as she shoved food into her mouth and her body into clothes. Nothing fit her right. It was like something had settled just beneath her skin. A knock at the door interrupted her angry thoughts. She recognized it immediately. The knock matched the same pattern and tempo as the tapping fingers from yesterday.
The person stood at her door. Their presence disturbed Annie.
“What are you doing here?”
“You didn’t follow me yesterday.”
“What? Why would I follow you? How do you know where I live?”
“Of course I know where you live. You brought me here.”
“I did not bring you here! What does that even mean?”
They waved their hands around them as if trying to indicate something. Their fingers looked transparent in the fog.
“Are you saying I brought the fog? I’m going to call 9-1-1 if you don’t leave me alone. You should be back in the looney bin!”
They didn’t answer.
“I mean it! Leave me alone!”
“Alone,” they repeated. “That’s what you want. To be alone.”
“Yes. So leave.”
“You want this all to disappear. The mist makes it disappear.”
Annie looked beyond the figure into the nothingness before her.
“It makes it disappear?”
“Yes. Follow me?”
Annie didn’t know why, but she followed the person who should not be there. In a way, it felt like she was following herself. They meandered through the fog, walking past buildings and rocks and water that Annie could not see– that the person would never see.
“Annie?”
A voice broke through the mist and stung her. Darren made himself visible as he approached.
“Annie! Where are you going?”
He was irritable, but his question still held the tenderness that Annie had been familiar with since high school and had somehow let go.
“I’m following them. They’re new here. They’re from the asylum.”
“Who? Why aren’t you at the shop?”
“Them! They said the fog would make it go away!”
“Fog? Annie, you're not making any sense.”
She ignored Darren’s pleas for explanation, trailing behind the strange figure. It seemed to grow taller as they walked, and more confident, too. She saw Darren make a call, but she didn’t care. If it could all go away then she’d let the person do whatever they wanted.
She couldn’t see anything and she could only smell the mist, but she could feel the incline. The steep hill burned her calves. When they seemed to reach the top, she blacked out.
Annie came to in a bed, surrounded by doctors, with an IV in her arm.
“She’s awake,” said a nurse. “Get the doctor.”
“Where am I?”
“Ssh. We have to take your vitals.”
Annie was confused as a man in a lab coat forced his way into the room. He shone a blinding light into her eyes.
“Pupils look good,” he uttered to the nurse.
“Where am I,” Annie asked again.
“You’re at The Morrison Mental Health Institute. I’m sorry if you’re confused.”
Panic began to set in.
“How long have I been here?”
“Not long. A day. A concerned friend of yours called for a wellness check on you. He said you were prone to ‘episodes.’”
“Let me go!”
Annie attempted to rip the needle from her arm, which prompted a man she had not noticed to hold both her arms down as the nurse put a new substance into her IV bag. The room became blurred and soft. Her eyes blinked slowly, opening to a different, surreal version of a hospital room each time. The man that held her down morphed into someone shorter and softer, too. The figure from the coffee shop stared back at her.
“Look out,” they told her.
She peered through the tiny window, one of many throughout the massive structure, and looked into the town. It was a clear summer day. The sort of day that one imagines when they think of the perfect American getaway full of ice cream cones and sailing. There were no boats, though, nor homes nor bed and breakfasts. It was utterly, completely, and totally devoid of anything beyond a glistening bay. It could become everything or nothing. It was a space of no promises, no guarantees.
When she turned back, she saw only a light haze that emitted the gentlest wisp of sour petrichor. It disappeared as she fell asleep.