Summer Fog

The fog was a massive, moving white wall, billowing and swirling inexorably toward us. It enveloped the lighthouse and flowed through the passage, swallowing everything in its path, even the sun. Ruthie and I scrambled madly for the wharf but the rolling fog was faster and we were trapped before we got half way.

“Well, hell,” Ruthie muttered, her voice so oddly disembodied that she might've been as close as six inches or as far as six feet, “If that don't beat all.”

Seconds before there had been gulls screeching overhead, waves washing up on the rocks and the sound of the ferry engine making its usual crossing. Now all we could hear was the muted foghorn, calling out a warning in its gruff bass voice. It was a familiar sound but mournful somehow and not much use to a pair of children stuck in a fog bank on a rocky beach.

“Reach out yer hand,” Ruthie called, “Reach out and hold it out.”

We hadn't been that far apart when the fog had come in so it seemed reasonable that we could find each other but it was like reaching into cotton candy. I stretched out my arm only to see it eerily disappear at the wrist.

“Feel around,” Ruthie ordered impatiently, “Like you was tryin' to find somethin' over yer head. Can you whistle?”

I protested that she knew perfectly well I couldn't whistle. She'd tried to teach me for years.

“Sing then!” she snapped, “Loud!”

After several rounds of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”, her fingers finally latched onto mine. We were both cold and soaked to the skin but we weren't alone and there was no need to be afraid. We sat on the rocks in the chowder-like fog and waited it out while the foghorn continued to blare. Eventually the sound grew sharper. Not long after, we heard a muffled engine noise and then the cries of the gulls.  As if someone waved away the mist, the wharf and the factory came into view, then the canteen and then we could see all the way to the end of the passage. The thick, white wall rolled away toward the open water and the sun fought its way through the leftover clouds, revealing a bright, blue summer sky. 

We could hear my grandmother calling our names - I remember feeling relieved that she sounded more alarmed than annoyed - so we scaled the embankment in double time, slipped beneath the guard rail and headed home.  Nana smiled at the sight of us, skinned knees, dirty faces and all, and shooed us into the house for cookies and milk and dry clothes. 

Folks talked about that fog all the rest of the summer, like it was alive almost.  By July, it had been 2o miles across and lasted for three days.  By August,  the whole crew of a whale watching boat had been swallowed up, tourists and all, never to be seen again.  

"Come Labor Day," Nana remarked wryly, "I expect it'll have grown legs, learned to talk and turned radioactive."

And so a one time, freak oddity of weather that lasted minutes and did no damage became a legend.  It was just more fun that way.