It’s 4am and I can’t breathe so I take an antihistamine and stand on the roof for some time, catching the fresh air. As I’ve mentioned in other writings, this is a 4th floor apartment in a hilly area, so I stand tall, and see far. But tonight of all nights, I was above the clouds as a thick fog covered the riverside suburb. All there was left to see were faint stars beneath my horizon line, window city planets with their own inhabited gravities. I could have taken up my binoculars but wouldn’t have been left with much of a view, the dull milk surrounded me on all sides.

Blue sun explosion fluttered from the depths of the urban valley, an ambulance silently alerting of its presence in the night. Despite dry summer, everything felt an ambient dampness to it, the metal railing guarding me at the edge of the verandah leaving my hands tasting of wet iron.

I’m a ship gliding through sea, I’m removed from the world entirely – thank fuck, for I tire of writing about this apartment, though I do love it so.

The first time I recall seeing fog in the modern era was leaving Caceres with Elise and Isa by taxi, for we didn’t want to walk along a goddamned highway for however many hours. So instead we fast traveled north until we reached Embalse de José Maria Oriol then continued by foot, passing through Cañaveral and I think ending the day in Grimaldo. The long straight stretch of road that was the A-66/E-803, early in the morning and probably late March, it was still dark, we could see nothing around us. I remember grinning in amazement, heart fluttering as we penetrated the monolithic plumes of still white smoke. We were early explorers of the new world, we were deep sea divers, we were gliding through the flesh of Uranus – an atmosphere wearing a face, letting itself be known.

However, I was travelling with an Englishwoman and a German, both of whom acknowledged the great fogs with sleepy, borderline uninterested eyes. They’ve grown up used to being blinded by water in such a way, whereas I have found comfort and home in the clamorous torrential downpours of the tropics – water announcing its presence aggressively against the corrugated metal roofs.

~

Anyway, 4am passed and I returned to sleep with a light, but adequate breath, waking some hours later to blue sky. Like tissue paper, the sun had burned away our topic with ease, no sound, suspended mid air.

While I recall parts of our walk after the taxi dropped us off, the fog’s passing sat in the background despite my earlier adoration of its magnificence. I remember only the hard cut scene change to clarity. We walked up a hill and then through mud, I was concerned with my feet and the ground beneath me more than what the wind carried, I suppose. I’m sorry, that was awfully rude of me.

Now, the first time I really recall seeing the air obscured as such was back home – I was driving up winding mountain roads just north of the qld/nsw border. Though, as earlier in the drive it was merely overcast, not foggy, what I traveled through here was most likely low hanging clouds scratching their bellies on the various peaks of Lamington National Park. Still, the skinny worms of roads in low visibility seared itself into my mind.

I am drawn to water in air. I return to Aquarius, carrier.

After the drive I found myself at a plateau, a grove of trees where the bloke I was traveling with warned me of the fire ant mounds. We stood at the edge of the cliff, milk sea beneath us. Now, there were no stars floating down there, as there was this past night in the city, but I was drifting above another world yet again.

~

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