During and after quarantine I was dealing with a lot of anxious thoughts and uncomfortable feelings. I decided to make this story to represent anxiety in an analogy and put it into something that makes it easier to explain instead of just trying to describe the feeling. The fog in my story is a representation of these feelings. It is very unpredictable and it can come in anywhere at any time. 

Even before the fog came there was a desperate panic. People rushing to close shops, turn on lamps, land planes, get to safety. It was so unexpected. Subtle. It was dangerous. The mist rolled in slowly but there was barely enough time to get ready. It was thick and cloudy. If you were caught out in the open, there was no way of knowing which way was right, left, up, down. It was just there. And you were stuck in it. Nobody knew how long it would last. Sometimes a few minutes. Sometimes days. If cars were left on the highway, the only thing to guide them was the lights. The road was invisible. So were the signs. If a plane was flying, there was no way to land it. It didn’t matter how high up you were or how far away. The murky haze would find you. And you would be stuck.

It wasn’t the fog itself that scared people. It was the thoughts surrounding it. What if we don’t get inside? What if it happens somewhere else in the world while my family is traveling? What if we run out of food? What if we just can’t get out? The thoughts themselves seemed silly, but when the mist started coming, everything became real. In some ways, it was always there. Not physically, but the thought that the fog could come was scary enough for most people. But as quickly as it started, it was over. The fog lifted and people carried on with their day, trying to put back the community so they could be stronger for next time. On the outside, it just looked like a bunch of scrambling people. But on the inside it was so much more. It was a hustling lifestyle. Nobody knew what came next. All they could do was wait and hope.