I thought about taking a break from my shabby blog. My blog was supposed to inspire me to write extraordinary pieces of writing whether nonfiction or fiction. Instead, it has been a dumping ground for my never-ending sadness. I was going to write a whole blog about this but then I decided to cut the cycle. Sadness blogs are allowed but not all the time.

So I am changing the narrative and I am going to write about something else.

It was 6am when Frshta’s alarm went off. She jabbed at the side button on her iPhone to turn it off. It was still dark outside and she had to pee. She wobbled to the hallway bathroom but her sister was in there. So, she walked to her parents’ bathroom. Each step that she took hurt her feet. The bottoms of her feet were so achy from serving the night before. She flipped the light switch on and peed. She washed her hands and walked back to her room. She could hear her roosters crowing from a distance. She locked them up at night because of their loud crows. She has way too many roosters right now and needed to find them some homes.

She stumbled back into bed and turned off her 6:20am and 6:30am alarm. She was wide awake and just rested for a while longer. She opened her eyes and looked at the time, it was 6:37am. She jumped out of bed reluctantly to get dressed for her morning walk even though she was sad about not getting any results yet. She still showed up. She put on her baggy grey sweater over her pajama shirt and some bag sweats over her pajama shorts. She put on some socks and went to see if her mom was up. She wasn’t. She thought about waking up but she decided to let her sleep. This is the second day her mom has slept through their walks. She put on her tennis shoes and programmed her Apple Watch to “outdoor walk.” She noticed that it was still dark outside. It was eerie. Halloween lights were still on and glowing through the morning fog. The trees rustled in the wind. The air smelled like damp grass. As she walked down her usual path, she noticed the cats scurrying away as she passed.

As she walked, she kept looking behind her. She thought she heard loud footsteps but no one was there. She kept on walking and her mind wandered to different places but the feeling of someone being behind her kept bringing her back to the present. She couldn’t help but feel like she was being followed. She looked around the neighborhood. It was quiet. A weird kind of quiet. She couldn’t even hear the birds chirping. At that moment, she wished she had woken her mom up to go with her. She was always lecturing her mom about the dangers of going on walks by yourself early morning or evenings and here she was doing exactly what she told her mom not to do.

She decided to head home. She speeded and walked towards her house. She kept glancing behind her but nothing was there. She finally got home. She locked the door behind her and peered through the window outside. The fog was thick and looked like it moving towards her home. As if the fog was following her. She decided to go about her day but for the next few weeks, she kept having nightmares about the eerie feeling she got from the fog.

Was there something there? Or was it just a figment of her imagination? Or maybe something sinister was amongst the fog? Or was it trying to warn her of some other kind of danger?

Cheers,

Frshta