The Fog And How It Affects US

The fog is a force of nature that affects different people in different ways. Some people love it for the mysterious yet beautiful display of nature that it is. Some people fear it for its effect on our moods. Some people love it for the same reason. It can conjure up visions, nightmares, and hidden fears.

Fog scares a lot of people, especially at night if they have to drive somewhere. In a thick fog, visibility is almost zero. Your car headlights can only penetrate a few car lengths ahead, if even that far, and you can’t see anything at all on either side of the road, or even the shoulder of the road.

The world seems to shrink down to just you and the fog. Everything starts feeling a little claustrophobic, and you have to really slow down and concentrate if you’re driving to make sure you can recognize and negotiate a curve or even maintain driving safely on a straight stretch of road.

You may be driving on the same stretch of road you drive on every day, say on your early morning or evening commute. But now you can see none of the old, familiar landmarks that mark the passage of your journey.

The same shopping malls, restaurants, schools, or businesses that are always reassuring checkpoints that mark and measure the passage of your trip are all suddenly invisible. They have all mysteriously vanished, lost in the smothering cloak of the all-encompassing fog.

Even streetlights, stop signs, and traffic lights are swathed in a shroud of nearly impenetrable fog, and you can easily miss them if you are not looking for them or driving someplace that is not part of your daily routine.

The fog diffuses the comforting effects of your headlights. You cannot use the high beams at all because the fog makes the glare worse. So instead of a direct beam of reassuring light to guide you, you are enveloped in a dimly perceived and barely visible landscape, full of unknowns.

You feel disorientated, almost blinded because of the lack of visibility and your hands involuntarily grip the steering wheel a little tighter than normal. People need the reassurance of the physical parameters of their place in the world to feel confidence and trust in their spatial location, especially when driving on a freeway at relatively high speeds.

But a winding twisty rural road can be even worse, because these roads rarely have any street lights to guide you anyway. You feel almost lost and hope and pray that nobody you know, especially a friend or neighbor, is not walking or biking on the side of the road cloaked in the fog as you pick your way to your destination, slowly, carefully, hopefully.

I remember vividly one time when I was working as a truck driver I had to drive to the oh-so-familiar nearby Golden Gate Park in SF to make a predawn delivery for some pre-scheduled event. I think it was a joggers marathon that was taking place later that morning.

The plan was to wait for the other drivers to arrive with their loads of tables and chairs and after the rendezvous, we would all work together to unload all the trucks at the designated location so that when the event organizers arrived they could set up all the necessary equipment exactly the way they had planned it out.

But I got there early, it was still dark outside, and none of the other drivers had shown up yet. I managed to pick my way to the agreed-upon location and gingerly pulled over to the side of the road, which was itself risky because the shoulder was narrow and there was a steep dropoff to the grassy field below where the event was being held.

But I was all alone, just me and the especially thick, swirling fog enveloping me and my truck. For some inexplicable reason, I started feeling scared, nervous, and apprehensive. I knew it was illogical, who would be around at that hour in that location, but I still had a nagging fear gnawing at me.

I tried everything, blasting the radio, singing, shouting. I even got out and walked around the truck. It was cold and damp but there was nothing and nobody around. That I could see. But something felt wrong, I didn’t know why. It was just a prickling feeling down my back, a fear of the unknown.

So I got back in my truck and rolled up all the windows and locked both doors and waited. All I could do was peer out the window at the fog and wait. Then the strangest thing happened.

As I looked out the window, suddenly I started seeing things. Bad scary things. I saw monsters and ghosts and demons, wraiths and shadowy images and creatures of the night. And they came twisting and winding their way out of the fog and then appeared suddenly at my locked rolled-up window, demanding entrance by their mere presence.

It was like the opening scene in Ghostbusters, only 100 times worse. They came in waves and didn’t stop until I finally turned my head away from the fog and refused to acknowledge their existence. I was sweating and shaking.

I have never felt that way before or since. I know now, I knew then, that it was an illogical fear, a distortion caused by the fog, maybe a hallucination, a product of my overheated imagination. Cold comfort.

All these logical explanations did me no good in those few moments, maybe an hour in that particular place and time. Time has no meaning in a situation like that. It was all too real. I felt it, I tasted it. Logic cannot defeat the power of the imagination.

It all worked out eventually. The other drivers showed up, we unloaded the trucks, and went on our way. I never mentioned this experience to them or anybody while I worked at that job.

I will never doubt it now when other people tell me of similar experiences. I just nod and say, I know what you mean. I’m a believer in things that go bump in the night now. You had to be there. I’m glad you were not.

I wish the whole thing was just a fevered dream, a nightmare. That it never happened. I will always remember that feeling of helplessness and fear of the unknown, that assault from the underworld for the rest of my life.

It was all too real. A thick, heavy fog, especially at night, still makes me nervous. I have my reasons.