the fog
There is a fog clinging to the air above the sidewalks tonight–a fog or a mist, or perhaps it doesn’t matter. It’s white and hazy and sparkles underneath the street lamps, and it looks like my breath when I exhale. I breathe in and it hurts (I brushed my teeth with mint toothpaste right before this), I breathe out a cloud and it joins the rest of the mist, swirling and dancing happily around in the cold.
There is a fog in my brain tonight, and though I can’t see it, it’s probably much less beautiful than the fog outside. It’s hot and heavy and I’m pretty sure it’s keeping me from walking in a straight line. It’s been here since this morning when I opened my eyes at 7:17, dragged my body into the grimy shower stall, and somehow made it up the hill for a London Fog–there’s that word again. I think it’s haunting me.
Come to think of it, the fog was there last night, too. It settled during a three hour conversation with Lincoln; was it 2:30 when I went to bed? I suppose that doesn’t matter either, because the hours blend together after midnight. It’s all a haze (or a fog, if you will). Anyway, it became heavier the more words we said, until we weren’t saying words at all, we simply sat in the Nerland lounge and stared at the fake video fire in the corner. I didn’t even have enough room in my mind to wonder the same questions I always do: why build a whole fireplace, or at least what looks like a fireplace, if there will be no fire? People are eternally cold here; we all long to put our hands against the warmth of a glowing orange flame.
The fog was so heavy that I couldn’t remember the funny thing I was going to tell Lincoln, something that happened earlier that day, and of course I don’t remember it now. I’m sure someone I admire said something clever or funny, and I tucked it away to laugh about later. I didn’t write it down–I should have written it down. Perhaps it doesn’t matter as much as I’m sure it does.
I suppose I did learn something along the lines of a lesson, because I wrote down four of the funny things that Professor Botz said in class today. “When you were a wee little John Keats sized human…” she said, and the rest of the sentence doesn’t matter in this context because it was the first half that made everyone giggle. John Keats was 5 feet tall. Isabelle gained a little more confidence in herself as a writer today after learning that bit of information. Sophie claimed she could take him in a fight. Isabelle said she probably couldn’t, but that she has “mad respect for the dude.”
Maybe I don’t remember that conversation as well as I think I do, and maybe that’s not what she said. I faded in and out, to be honest. We were standing while having that conversation but my body wanted to be on the floor, which seemed to move beneath my feet. The classroom swirled like mist under a street lamp (not to overuse that metaphor), but I managed to keep myself upright and survive another hour in class.
The rest of the day was meaningful, I’m sure. I only listened to Tom Odell’s new album, Black Friday, three times through: a second time because I fell asleep the first time, and a third to give me some sort of motivation to clean my room. It proved to be a success, because now all my clothes are folded and my side of the dorm looks slightly nicer than my roommates’. I’m wearing a giant sweatshirt and my teeth are brushed and I’m doing homework. I shouldn’t be so proud of myself for doing homework, but it’s difficult in whatever state of mind this is.
Maybe I can close my eyes after this and sleep the fog away.
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