The Fog

The Fog

At times it is so quiet. It is like I am the only person on the planet. My eyes strain to see beyond the nearest space. It is as if a curtain has descended between me and the world. I can’t move. I am trapped by this fog, this oppressive heavy fog that holds me here. I try to look down at my limbs but I can’t see them. I try to move them but the fog is so crushing and my limbs are held in the steely mist.

In the distance, I can hear faint voices. I strain to find their direction. I can’t tell where they are and they have no direction just an all encompassing whisper with no real definition. Sometimes they seem familiar and sometimes totally strange. I can’t define words in the voices. It is as if the fog has stripped away meaning from the words and all that is left is the music within the words. I can hear the rise and fall of inflexion and the change from one voice to another but I can’t hear what they say. I try to call out but my voice seems to hit the barrier of the fog and just becomes part of it without denting it and my words fall back in my throat.

Then, silence. Long silences.

I can sense someone or something is near to me but there is still no sound, I try to call out but my voice will not make the sounds I want. I am motionless. The world is still and I am frozen in the fog with no means of finding out who or what is with me. My fear grows. The unknown has always held fear for me but mostly I have been able to come out of the fear through some action or release. Like when you are hiding when you are a child and all of a sudden the hiding place becomes scary and closes in on you, so you burst out of there even if it means getting caught. But this fog is so overwhelming and so powerful that I am unable to find a way around it or through it. It continues to oppress. It continues to deaden sound and to exclude others.

Then I feel something brush past me, only for an instant. Just a whish and it is gone. It is so quick that I wonder for a moment if it happened but then there is a tingle in the hairs of my lower arm and I know it happened. I try to call out again but to no avail. I have no voice. I have no body. I have no world. All there is, is the fog. The mist begins behind my eyes and flows through my face and shoulders then on down the whole of my body. My body is made up of fog.

I feel a movement by my side again but I can’t react to it. I can sense it now. It is a person and they are holding my arm and I begin to hear a voice. Distant at first then coming closer, starting to take shape. I still cannot move but the voice is becoming clear. Another voice joins the first. I can tell the difference between the two. One is male and one is female. The words are still slushy but they are becoming clearer. The mail voice is kindly and the female one distressed. The fog is still all around me but the voices become clearer as each second passes. The words are beginning to be formed as they float out of the fog. I finally recognise the distressed woman. It is my wife. I don’t know the other voice but the last thing I hear is his voice saying.

“I’m sorry Mrs Thompson but he’s gone. It’s kinder to switch off the machine.”

And the fog rolls back over me.


Word Count: 660