Days Of Fog

When I left the house this morning, my wife was standing at the door and waving, and Jinx was on the porch watching me.

The morning was foggy, and the deer were active. One ran across the road in front of me when I was barely out of sight of the house, and between there and my office, I passed at least ten. Sleek, regal, liquid-eyed, and dainty-legged, they each looked at me as I went past them, unaware that I was praying for their safety. Or were they? Who can say?

I passed the bicyclist I see most mornings, and I lifted my hand and blessed him and whispered the short prayer, almost rote by now, as I passed him the mist.

And now I am at work, in the still-silent office, where the lies become more systemic and more blatant and more shameless every day. A perfect florescent-lit receptacle of all the awful, base things about American society. And I, the silent hypocrite with my invisible manacles of wage slavery heavy around my ankles, I stride through the hallways and choke back my comments and my judgments, watching the fearful, glittering eyes above the masks, listening to the inane chatter, sensing the fin de santé mentale of the age, of the populace, of the ground itself.

But after some hours brush past me, I will drive back up into the highlands and perhaps pass some more deer, and I will turn down that beloved gravel road, and thread my way through the trees to my long, shady driveway, and I will see a spotted dog in the yard, and my wife will be waiting for me, and my magical power to keep the lunacy of the world away from my home will return, and it will all be better.

So much is hidden. But we continue on.

~ S.K. Orr