“The fog is coming in heavy,” the flight controller in the tower said to the pilot. “It’s a barrier to safe jumps, even if you have them wearing orange jumpsuits for visibility. I think you should, for various reasons, over and above the fog, cancel the skydiving run and return to the airfield while you still can.”
Written for Greg’s Five Word Weekly Challenge, where the words are: various | tower | barrier | jumpsuit | fog
Her daughter had offered to pick her up, but Helen said it wouldn’t be necessary. It wasn’t that long of a walk and Helen knew the path through the woods very well. But the sun started setting earlier these days and then fog set in, and Helen got confused.
As the fog thickened around her, enveloping her in a cold mist, she realized that she was lost and she started to panic, wondering if she’d see her daughter and grandchildren ever again. She started to sob.
She was startled when she heard the voice. “May I be of assistance?” the deep voice asked. Helen turned around to see a very old, hunched over man. He was rather creepy looking once he got close enough for her to see his features through the fog, and his breath was rancid.
“No thank you,” Helen said, “I’m on my way to visit my daughter and her husband and I must have gotten turned around in the fog, but I think I’ve got my bearings now.” She lied, but she was frightened by this strange man who emerged from the thick fog out of nowhere.
Suddenly Helen felt his gnarly fingers grab her hand and squeeze hard enough that she couldn’t get out of his grip. “Come with me,” he said, “I will take you where you need to be.” Then he pulled her hand.
“No!” Helen screamed, standing her ground. “Let go of me.” But the man’s grip further tightened around her hand.
The sound of a barking dog could be heard coming closer to where Helen and the man were standing. Then a woman’s voice. “Mom? Mom?”
Then a man’s voice. “Helen, is that you? Are you all right?”
The man holding Helen’s hand loosened his grip, turned around, and vanished into the fog right before Max, her daughter’s German Shepherd reached Helen, followed momentarily by her daughter and son-in-law. “Mom, we got worried when you didn’t arrive when we expected you. You seem a little shaken. What happened?”
“Nothing, sweetheart,” Helen lied. “It’s the fog. It came in so quickly and so thick. I became a little disoriented, but I’m fine. But I think next time, I’ll accept your offer to come get me and give me a lift.”
Written for Sadje’s What Do You See prompt. Photo credit: Shahzin Shajid @ Unsplash.
He appeared to be larger than life when he walked out onto the stage. Of course, it was all due to the theatrical effects, with the fog machine, the backlighting, and the eerie music. Well, he may have fooled some of those lemmings in the audience, but he didn’t fool me.
Written for Sonya’s Three Line Tales prompt. Photo credit: unattributed.
“I’m so bummed out,” Beth complained as she sat at a table in the lodge drinking her hot toddy. “How long have we planned this ski trip and look what happens. Seems the only luck we have these days is bad luck.”
“I know, babe,” Aaron said, taking a sip from his Irish coffee mug. “Our timing really sucks. I can’t believe that they closed all of the trails and shut down the lifts just because of a little fog.”
“Well, it’s not just a little fog, sweetie,” Beth said. “It’s like pea soup out there. You can’t see a foot in front of your face. It would be dangerous to try to ski in these conditions.”
“Yeah, I know,” Aaron admitted. “But we spent a bundle on this trip and because of this thick fog that has settled over the entire resort area, we can’t take advantage of the world-class slopes and the majestic views. And who knows when, or even if, we’ll be able to get back here.”
“We’ll just have to make the best of a bad situation,” Beth said, flashing an amorous smile at her fiancé.
Aaron grinned and playfully said, “Well, my dear, do you have anything specific in mind?”
“Why don’t we walk back to our cabin,” Beth said, “We can throw some logs into the fireplace, get comfy, and see if we can figure out a way to, um, lift the fog, if you get my drift.”
“Oh, I get your drift, all right,” Aaron said. He quickly finished his Irish coffee, paid the tab, grabbed Beth’s hand, and said, “You know, I’m starting to feel a whole lot better about being fogged in.”
Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge. Photo credit: Luca Nardone on Pexels.com.
Reliable information about the thick fog that had enveloped the city was scarce. Reports from various media outlets were contradictory, some saying it was radioactive or toxic, others saying it was harmless water vaper, and still others calling it otherworldly.
The governor had activated the National Guard and the president was even weighing calling up some Army Reserve units to maintain stability, since unexplainable phenomena like these have a propensity to affect people in unanticipated ways and to even cause a panic.
Ultimately those who survived the fog learned that it had descended upon the entire planet and the term that they used, spoken in hushed tones when talking about it from deep within the underground safe zones, was “apocalyptic.”
Written for the Mindlovemisery’s Menagerie Photo Challenge. Photo credit: Aleksandar Pasaric at Pexels.com. Also for these daily prompts: The Daily Spur (information, army), Word of the Day Challenge (media), MMA Storytime (contradict), Fandango’s One-Word Challenge (propensity), and Your Daily Word Prompt (affect).
This, That, and the Other 