Foghorn

Fog poured over the giant red bridge that guarded the city by the sea. Pink sunset light filled the fog, and I sat on a bench and watched as the bridge steadily vanished and became nothing more than a memory. The only thing you could still see of the bridge were the tops of its two giant spires, where ribbony wisps of pink fog danced about as if to music. At street level it was dark, and yellow light from streetlamps lining the bridge hovered there in the air like dim stars.

Everyone in the city knew that if you crossed the bridge when the sunset fog came, you would vanish forever. No-one knew where you went after the fog took you, and when there’s a hole in people’s knowledge they tend to fill it with things like myths and fairy tales.

The story surrounding the people who vanished into the fog was that they became the fog, and that their spirits were the wisps you could see dancing way up high around the bridge’s spires.

That was the story everyone told, because no-one knew what else to believe.

Somewhere nearby, two foghorns bellowed deep, sad notes that filled the air and which the fog did not muffle. I sat on my bench, which stood on a little hill by the bridge. Next to the bench there was a weathered wooden billboard covered with photos of people the fog had taken. There was a tattered photo of an old man with wild white hair and a kind, wrinkled face, and there was a just-starting-to-fade polaroid of a girl with a big grin and braces.

My eyes wandered over the billboard until I found my friend’s face. In the photo he had a thick mop of tousled black hair that shot in every direction, and behind coke bottle glasses he had warm eyes that twinkled with light and life. He had been my best friend, and the last place I’d seen him alive was this bridge, for he was the first person the fog had taken.

It was years ago, and we’d been hiking a trail below the bridge on a foggy evening like this one. It was a trail we hiked often, and, as he always did, he had been listening to what I was saying with his whole being. I don’t remember what I’d been saying, but I remember how he would hang on my every word, and how he’d seize on offhand comments I’d made and reveal a hidden genius in them. He’d listen to me like he was listening to a beloved song, and, when I was with him, I felt I was a kind of beloved song. I felt like how every human ought to feel all of the time: like they matter.

The trail led to the little hill by the bridge, and we sat on the bench and I kept on talking about myself. But then, somehow, as though the sun had suddenly set, I knew he was no longer listening to me. I turned and looked and saw him staring intently into the dark fog that covered the bridge. Tears welled in his eyes and streamed down his cheeks, and a profound calm settled over him.

He turned and looked at me.

‘Have you ever heard anything so lovely, bug?’ He whispered.

My friend stood, and I did not try to stop him as he went down the little hill and out onto the bridge. I watched from afar as the thin fingers of the fog closed around him, and it was only when he had vanished completely from view that I stood and sprinted after him. I ran up and down the entire length of the bridge several times, but he was nowhere to be found.

Since that night, countless others had vanished in the same way. So many disappeared that the bench where I now sat was the last place anyone was allowed to go once the fog came, and the billboard next to me now served as a kind of memorial where people came to remember the dead.

‘Hey, you,’ I said to his photo.

He looked back at me and beamed with frozen delight.

‘Sorry I haven’t been back up here in a bit.’ I reached into my pocket and fingered a newly printed photo of him, which I’d brought as a replacement.

I was about to say something else when I heard it: the whistling. The foghorns had just sounded, and somewhere inside their sad bellows there arose the sounds of somebody whistling a cheerful tune. I peered into the fog covering the bridge, and after many moments a shadow resolved into the silhouette of a very large man. The first thing I saw were his eyes, which looked like two twinkling stars hovering there in the air. The fog thinned a bit, and I saw it was an enormous man with a very large beard. He wore overalls and big worn leather boots. His whistling cut the fog as though it were not there, and it filled the darkness with an air of comfort and cheer. There were the notes he whistled, but the whole of him – his whole being – seemed somehow songlike, like a sunrise you feel but cannot see.

The man moved through the fog and then turned and went down the trail I had hiked to the bridge. I sat there frozen for several seconds and then stood and hurried after him.

It was easy to follow the man because he kept on whistling. I followed the trail, and in the dim twilight it was easy to conjure memories from years past of my missing friend and I hiking the trail, me talking, him listening. My heart went out to the memories that I saw, but it could not join them.

I rounded a bend in the trail and saw it: the foghorn house. The front door of the house was open, and there was only a pitch black darkness inside and the happy whistling sounds. Then, after a minute, the two stars appeared in the doorway, and the whistling stopped. The stars examined me for a moment, and then they started twinkling more cheerfully.

‘Was just puttin’ the kettle on fer tea. Come, dear child! Come!’

The two stars disappeared, and I followed them. It was dark inside, but in the middle of the space there was a tiny potbelly stove with a happy fire flickering inside and a small yellow kettle on top. Next to the stove sat a small table with a teapot and two chipped mugs. There were two stools next to the table, and the merry man with stars for eyes sat on one of the stools. He took the teapot in hand and poured a glowing red tea into each mug. I picked up my mug, peered into the warm red light, and took a sip that scattered all memory and thought of fog, darkness, and long-lost friends.

I looked up at him.

‘How did you do that?’ I whispered after a minute.

‘Do what, my dear?’

‘Walk through the fog. Everyone knows that if you go into the fog on a night like this, you don’t ever come back. Not ever.’

‘Hmmm, mhm,’ the merry man said as he stroked his long grey and black beard. He had a serious look on his weathered face, but the stars in his eyes continued dancing their cheery dance. ‘Yeh know, this is no night for a young’un like yourself to be out and about. Yeh should know that. But o’ I guess there’s no stopping anyone. Nope. People follow their paths and there’s no way o’ stoppin’ ‘em. What brought yeh here on this dark night, dear child?’

I reached in my pocket, took out the photo of my friend, and handed it to him. The enormous man took it in his enormous hand, held his mug of glowing tea next to the photo and his starry eyes inspected it.

‘Have you ever seen him anywhere in the fog? He was my best friend, and the first to vanish. I come up here sometimes to see if I can see him somewhere in the fog.’

‘Hrmpf. Seen so many cross on over, I have. There’s no stoppin’ em. Nope. Not when that little old man starts up with his music and folks ge’ that look in their eyes, like they’ve just gone and fallen in love. But I do know him. Such a friendly lad with such a kind face.’

I stared at the man, and he looked at me and his stars twinkled warmly.

‘Please, sir, I don’t know who you are, but please, tell me, how do you cross the fog without it taking you? I need to find him. I need to bring him back. I ran after him the night he vanished and tried to find him, but he was gone already, and I…’

I lowered my head, and tears welled in my eyes.

The man stood and walked to a window that looked out toward the ocean. He was a very large man, but he moved with a fog-like lightness. He reached up and pulled two ropes, one after the other, and the two horns atop the little building filled the night with their sad bellows.

The man looked out the window as the sounds filled the air.

‘What do the horns do?’ The merry man finally asked.

‘The horns? You mean the foghorns?’

‘Aye, what do they do?’

‘Uhm, they warn people on boats that land’s close by, so they don’t crash into rocks.’

‘Aye. Just that. Music singin’ an’ guidin’ ‘em home. Then they carry on and ne’er think o’ my music again, and that’s as it oughta be.’

The man turned and looked at me, and his starry eyes twinkled a little less happily.

‘All those folks goin’ on into the fog, they want to go in, or they think they do. They all hear the same ol’ thing: music that sounds like home – but it ain’t home. It sounds like what they’ve been missin,’ but it ain’t. But they go right for it, and then they’re gone, good n’ proper. Now that l’il old man up there on the spire, he thinks he’s helpin’ people with his music, and I go on over there some nights to tell ‘im music ain’t meant to feed people fairy stories about some place better, to lure ‘em into thinkin’ heaven’s somewhere differen’ than right un’er their two feet. I tell ‘im music’s s’ppose-ta get yeh on home – but to yer own home – like meh foghorns do, or like the stars up on high, or streetlamps, an’ nothin’ more ‘an that. That’s it. No more ‘an that. O’ but that old geezer, he means well, I s’pec. But o’ those people, they think they need ‘is music to be happy. But they don’t. They never did. The home they needed was always in ‘em. But people, they forget.’

The foghornist took a step toward me, and when he spoke, he spoke slowly and steadily.

‘Did yeh ever wonder why the fog di’n’t take yeh the night yer friend went on in, when you ran on in after ‘im?’

I listened to him and thought back to that night, and the way my friend had been listening to me and helping my heart sing.

‘Is that why you were whistling when you came out of the fog?’ I asked.

‘Som-in’ like that,’ he said. ‘The song inside ‘as to be lovelier than the song he plays. You have to find yer own song that’s always been there in yer ‘art, and you have to keep it in mind all the time. ’

The merry man walked back over to me and handed me back the photo of my friend.

‘Maybe ‘e can ‘elp yeh get where yer goin’.’

I looked down at the photo.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

He looked at me. ‘Hearts and souls, yenno, are on their own journeys, just the same as any ol’ ship, big or small, and they need just as much help. Don’ forget tha’.’

I went outside, and before I reached the bend in the trail I turned back around and looked through the door. I saw the little fire in the potbelly stove, and hovering in the dark above the light I saw two stars twinkling happily at me. Then I turned and followed the trail back up to the bridge. I reached the end of the bridge and watched the fog churning in a giant grey mass. I looked down at my friend’s photo and let the memories of how my heart would sing when I had been with him wash over me. The foghorns sounded again, and, clutching the picture, I took one step, then another, and let the fog envelop me.