It’s close to dusk. The world was silent and still, the air had gotten heavier. Warm air mixed with the frozen ground, dredging up that heavy fog that was rolling in, slowly, it connected with every twig, tree, and blade of grass.
I had a headache and my joints ached with its dampness. I stood out on the wet deck; all the snow had melted off the house, so that incessant drip, drip, dripping had ceased.
I was looking through the lenses of my Nikon. I changed the settings to see if the pictures would show something else, something clearer once I downloaded them on to my computer.
The air was silent and still, every so often a car swished past along the road. That sound conveyed an image to my mind and not to my eyes. Somewhere in the trees, I heard a wet sneeze. A deer? A coyote? I saw nothing past the fog. January-February is mating season for coyotes. They had done me well this year, they kept the rats under control. Rats are very brazen rodents, they will argue their point until I walk away, and I will still hear then squeaking out reasons, why I had interfered with their lives and how I should move on. ‘Go on! get out of here,’ they would say.
This past week, I haven’t heard the coyote’s distinct howling and yipping. But I have seen their tracks as they moved here and there as they followed the scent of a rodent under the snow or a rabbit whose tracks would cross back and forth, just a wild as the coyotes.
Yesterday afternoon, three deer wandered around the yard, they kicked at the ground, and ate roots, fallen fruit and pulled at stray apples that still clung to the wet branches. They stared at the house when they heard my voice. Ready without any warning, to bolt back into the trees.
Near sundown, I am taking pictures of fog. I felt like I was being watched. I could smell someone’s dryer sheets. The aroma of my chicken baking in the oven drifted out and moved within the fog.
The fog will carry those scents to the farmers across the field of fog, it will mingle and connect with others; it might even connect with a hungry animal’s salivary glands. I stepped back inside, and locked the door; then I took a picture from the inside out.
