@ 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...