In the Mist

We decided to take a walk. If the moon and stars still existed, they were hidden behind clouds. Then a fog hit us like a wave, a cloud that had run out of gas and crashed on us, to further shrink the perceptible world. Ordinary, walking people became vague phantoms that could loom, in film noir black and white out of the fog, suddenly sharpen and colorize, only to disappear again in moments. Sounds, out of sync, or garbled, came sharply from odd angles, turning that fifth sense unreliable. Noises, at first muted, were abruptly amplified as if the hand of that ghostly vapor ran a soundboard. A man, moving in stalker-like silence, clops, like a clydesdale on cobblestone as he passes close. I half expected a distant fog horn to announce the passing of a ghost ship where all be welcome.