Fog

I leave the enclosure of the parking garage and emerge onto the runway leading around the outside of the structure, noticing the movement of the twirling mist drifting through the trees and stretching across the open landscape towards me like an eerie hand, tentacle fingers, grasping me, leaving my exposed skin slightly damp and chilly. Goosebumps. I walk a little faster and drift down the stairs of the freeway stop to wait in the long line of differently bundled commuters. Some of the waiting bus riders are wearing their summer costumes – t-shirts, tank tops, capris, shorts, hairy legs, flip flops – anticipating the unusually warm temperatures of an Indian summer. Others are cloaked in coats, jackets, sweaters, boots and double looped scarves around necks holding hatted heads. I’m reminded of the morning weather forecast. Fog. Morning chill. Blazing afternoon heat. But no break from the fog that has blanketed the area for a couple of weeks. Record fog. Muggy by mid-morning. The speculative weather report hopeful of rain, but the sky delivering only drifting, shifting mist for a record setting number of days. Nineteen days and counting.