Once a year, in the winter, the fog comes. It crowds every house in the central valley, clinging to your skin like glue. You used to love it as a child. Now you know not to leave your house when the fog comes.
The road by the levee is apathetic to those who ride her pavement under the sunlight. But the levee roads turn cruel at night, twisting and turning, pulling drivers towards the river.
You’re taking a trip to Oregon, following the roads north. You pass through the town of Weed, California. “What an odd name for a town,” you think to yourself. As you drive through, you see buildings, but never any people. The vending machines at the rest stop are empty.
The ocean under the night sky is as Death Valley is at night. Beautiful, terrifying, and flat for as far as the horizon, and no where to hide from the stars, staring from above like a thousand eyes.
You merge from the 5 to the 405. You drive through the deserts if Cali, heading to L.A. Ahead, you see a single gas station, hours away from any human settlements. The lights are on, but when you enter, no one is there.
The mountain forests are old, far older than us. At night, your campfires smolder quicker than usual. The owls cry throughout the night. When you look away from the camp, you swear you see something passing between the trees, all around you. Waiting. Watching.
The Bay is always crowded. People always around you, passive bystanders to each other’s life. You notice that there are boats that never return to the docks, and busses that never run the other direction. No one has bumped into you all day.