The Mist

She appeared out of the mist and said, Hello, I am from the future, and I am from the past, and I believe you. Had I asked to be believed? I couldn't remember anything. I couldn't remember where I had been before the mist. She was wearing a Victorian dress and a helmet, a bit like a motorcycle helmet, but a little different, like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was a confusing look. Practical versus ethereal, a look resulting in neither, something else entirely, but what? I couldn't see her face properly, just her eyes and her hair, hair cascading out of the bottom of the helmet, blonde hair, wavy. I said, I recognise your voice, which I did, a bit, and she took her helmet off and I recognised her face too. She was my first ever girlfriend, now grown older, the same age as me, 31. I had forgotten everything.

"David" she said, walking forwards, throwing the helmet behind her, where it disappeared, and I imagined it falling, falling, forever. I felt like the same would become of me if I moved. If I moved in the wrong direction. Any direction at all.

She took my hand and pulled me, not forcefully, but I probably would have followed her anywhere, into the mist. I couldn't see anything. I could hear her breathing, softly. I couldn't feel the ground beneath me, it had fallen away, slowly, tentatively, as if it could think, so as not to alarm me. This was part of the plan. It felt like there was a plan. We walked for what felt like fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, saying nothing, I barely breathed, I thought I was dreaming.

I am back in the sports hall at school, sitting at a small wooden desk, writing furiously about Shakespeare. It is my GCSE English exam. Afterwards, I buy an ice-cream, I buy two ice-creams, and we sit in the park for hours.

I am at a party, it's new years eve, I'm sixteen years old, I have had two bottles of cheap lager and am drunk. We dance as the new year arrives and then we fall asleep on a sofa, surrounded by our friends. I am wearing a dodgy shirt. I am happy.

I am riding my motorcycle home from work in winter when the mist appears, dark, cold, sudden. I lose control, I am under a lorry, I am dying, am I dying? I can't remember if I am alive. Am I alive? It wasn't my fault. Please believe me. Don't let me die.

The mist started moving, I started seeing flecks of different colours, like woodchip wallpaper, the seeds in kiwi fruit, a fruit smoothie. It was as though we were in liquid with something dissolving in it, someone stirring it up. I spoke, but no sound came out. All of a sudden, the mist cleared.

I was in bed with you, holding you as you awoke from a nightmare, your nightgown like a Victorian dress. Beautiful, you are always. I said, it's okay, it's okay, only a dream, everything is fine. The baby was crying. It was my turn. I limped across the room, held the baby, looked at my leg, looked at you, put the baby back to bed. Afterwards I poured you a glass of water and got back into bed, stroking your blonde, wavy hair as you fell back asleep, lay awake, stared at the ceiling 'til it blurred, half-smiled.