vignette

She walked along the beach at a leisurely pace, looking for interestingly-shaped driftwood. "I mean, how hard can it be," she muttered, getting distracted by a pretty peach-colored rock. After picking it up and looking at it for a bit, she decided against putting it in her pocket and turned back to the wood.

"Too plain ... too ugly ... someone used that one for firewood ... that one's too big ..." She continued on, looking at and dismissing piece after piece as she wandered farther down the shore. All of a sudden the perfect piece was sitting right there in the mist -- she reached down to pick it up and nearly tumbled onto the sand. "Damn! That's heavy!" It wouldn't even budge. "Huh. I guess it true." She'd heard that driftwood was heavy but thought that was just a tale.

After an hour of searching she had found two pieces that were just the right size, just the right weight. And just in time. She turned around to start her walk back to the car and finally noticed how much the fog had crept to the shore. "Gees, this is spooky." Juggling the hefty wood, she picked up her pace and made her way over the rocks, past some brambles, and under a downed tree.

The fog completely surrounded her now and the stillness pressed down. She was the only thing in the universe, at least it felt that way. It was really disorienting. She paused a moment to get the full effect, then hurried on, hoping that the tide wasn't going to cut off her return route.

Finally she noticed it was getting lighter and realized the fog was backing off. "Heh. Thought you could scare me. Heh, no way." Finally the mist lifted enough that she could see the city lights coming on in the late fall afternoon dusk. It was beautiful.

She stopped and put the wood down, to rest a bit and enjoy the lights. "It's always so peaceful and life-affirming to see those lights," she thought. "Just makes me feel--" She cocked her head and looked closer. Something didn't seem right. The outline was off and the lights didn't seem to fit the pattern she knew by heart. And the longer she looked, the stranger it got.

"Those don't look right," she mumbled to herself. Shaking her head she picked up the wood and continued on. "I've got to get to the car, get home, and get something to eat. My brain needs food." She walked along thinking she should be just about at the parking lot by now, but couldn't tell that the bushes were thinning.

"Good grief. How much farther?" She continued on, starting to worry a bit, and hoping to get to the parking lot before it got dark. "Where is it?" she said, as she picked up her pace.