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- @ THE MIST
-
- # By Linette Voller 1992
-
-
- The rolling mist enveloped me. It wrapped around me like a dull, damp,
- heavy blanket. I could see nothing. Insubstantial fingers reached out
- and touched me, prodded me, held my face in their `hands'.
- I stumbled forwards, tripping over the rough terrain. I searched for
- a familiar landmark but all I could see was the swirling patterns in
- the grey depths of fog.
- I used to go there often, but now I only visit once a year, and in
- all my years of hill waking I can only remember one other day like
- this.
- A feeling of panic rose within me; I was hopelessly lost. I had lost
- all sense of direction... I could be walking in circles.
- Suddenly, I heard something.
- I stopped, looked around, there, I saw it, a glimpse of red and it
- was advancing. A figure immerged from the fog; waves of mist clinging
- and eventually parting to reveal the source of the noise.
- A tall boy stepped out of the fog, his damp blonde hair pasted to his
- freckled forehead. The red patch I had seen was his bright red jacket.
- He smiled at me, then formed an expression of great concern.
- "You'd better go that way," he said, pointing in the exact opposite
- direction in which I was heading. "You're heading towards the edge of
- the hill. There are jagged rocks at the bottom. If you go off there
- you've got no chance."
- "Thanks," I said. He smiled again, waved, turned away from me and
- dissolved into the fog.
- I continued carefully in the direction he had showed me. The mist
- began to clear. I could see things at first... they took on weird
- alien shapes... and then they slowly regained their previous form.
- They shed their hideous and creepy disguises and turned back to normal
- objects.
- A group of chattering people walked towards me. We greeted each other
- and I told them of the boy who saved me from going over the edge of
- the hill. Their cheerful, relieved faces were instantly transformed to
- masks of terror.
- A girl stepped forward from the group. She pushed her brown hair back
- over her shoulders.
- "You've seen a ghost," she said. "This time last year a body was
- found at the bottom of the hills and rumour has it that the ghost of
- that person walks the hills trying to get home." Her eyes searched my
- face for any sign of reaction.
- "He was too real," I said. "He couldn't have been the ghost."
- The girl looked at me despairingly and shook her head. The group said
- goodbye and left me. I watched them move - slighly faster than the
- average walking pace, and looking around nervously.
- I knew that boy couldn't have been the ghost... because I was. It was
- a foggy day like this on April the 29th when I lost my way and
- plummeted down onto the rocks below. Since then I have been looking
- for my way home, and now, because of that boy, I could now go home.
- Forever...
-