Phase Transition

Events in Dense Fog (3)

Part (2)

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Evidence, of a sort, came from a large-scale experiment, for which hundreds of replicas of the most peculiar condensates were constructed. These, paired with their originals, were distributed across town and closely monitored. The collection had a stubbornly long half-life, but sufficient events were ultimately observed to prove the hypothesis beyond reasonable doubt—only the man-made objects disappeared, whilst their uncanny counterparts remained. Unquestionably, the fog was selectively sampling its environment.

The most boring school of thought postulated that it just lost interest in whatever it had spat back out; the condensates were waste products—slightly chewed or completely mangled objects, occasionally carelessly fused together inside some invisible, churning maelstrom. Another group saw them as gifts or apologetic replacements for whatever had been taken; the fog was a benevolent and remorseful kleptomaniac. Others maintained that this was all some sort of experiment being conducted on the town itself, that there was some obscure trial that had to be overcome, if only it could be worked out what that was.

One could choose whichever theory one liked, as they all seemed to be impossible to test, with the underlying truth always out of reach. It was not even certain whether the fog was actually in any way culpable—was it a cause, a consequence or simply a cover for whatever was going on? In the absence of any other suitable candidates, however, everything continued to be ascribed to the fog for convenience; it was no less believable than anything else.

A conceptual breakthrough came from the apparently futile analyses of the growing records of disappearances. The research had become hopelessly lost within the intricacies of the data—the variety of affected objects, the uncountably many potential links between afflicted locations, documented to ever greater levels of temporal and geographical precision—it was all utterly disorientating. The problem was either one of unfathomable, transcendental complexity or else everything was completely random, but it was impossible to tell which. This had become such a distraction that the key characteristic of these objects was long overlooked: that they were just that—objects. Products of the natural world were unaffected, living creatures went untouched, everything animate and unwrought was exempt from abduction. Once that painfully obvious truth had dawned, it gradually shone light upon other facts. Buildings remained intact, cars stayed on driveways, buttons and paper clips were beneath its attention. The disappeared objects were neither too small nor too large, but were very much just right.

In the same way that the ranges of our senses are limited, perhaps the fog could only perceive objects that fit within certain dimensional parameters. It could only take what it could see. The hypothetical connection with perception gave rise to a new theory—the condensates were a material manifestation of language, one directed towards us, because our objects were how it thought we talked.

It had encountered an entire dictionary in the town and, after reading as much as it could, it began tentatively to communicate through the production of similar words. Sometimes its attempts called for near perfect reproductions of existing objects and sometimes they called for something more bizarre—unless these aberrations were merely the mistakes of a non-native speaker, the products of some misunderstandings of physical syntax and geometrical grammar.

In fact, it might not have noticed the human population at all—perhaps it believed that it was speaking to the town itself as a singular entity or that the built environment was a sensory organ of the surrounding landscape. The current range of sizes might also have been a choice, rather than a restriction—it could have already tried to communicate unnoticed, in an unheard whisper of teaspoons and pens; bread bins and kettles were the next step, before it really started shouting with fridges and tumble dryers.

In any case, some sort of equilibrium seemed to have been reached, with the fog apparently quite happy with the current situation. Since missing objects kept being replaced by the population, it might well have believed that the town was cheerfully continuing this pleasant conversation. One day, perhaps this would all come to a polite conclusion or simply trail off, once everything to say had been said. The fog would disperse for good and the whole phenomenon would fade into memory.

As had become customary, the latest speculative developments were included in the daily report. Once he had heard about these alleged communicative desires, it felt as if the world suddenly made sense to him again. He had found his theory—this was a version of the new reality that he could accept, one that suppressed the more worrying possibilities that had been eating away at his mind.

The rest of that day passed uneventfully, as days normally did. By the time evening came, the fog had already begun to gather. He drew the curtains against the approaching gloom and set about preparing his duplicated photographic diary. Once that had been managed, only bed remained.

*

The following morning, he awoke earlier than usual, to the sound of pre-dawn silence. The fog was still there—the birds were always too confused to sing when it covered and muffled the town. He turned over to switch on the light. For some reason, he was not surprised to find that, beside the lamp, his bedside table was empty. The camera had evaporated. He had been left alone.

And yet—he felt immensely calm. This should have been a puzzling reaction, given that his routine had become so entrenched. Because his habitual defences had once been so important to him, he had believed that they still were, but in that moment, as soon as they had been challenged by circumstance, he realised that that was no longer true. He felt no urgency to check the other camera either. If things had been different, it could have been looking forward to receiving a promotion, from lounge to bedroom, but that coveted role had disappeared along with its counterpart. The whole system had collapsed.

Instead, he got up, drew back the curtains and peered outside. Downstairs, the fog would be pressing against the windows, rendering them opaque; upstairs, it almost lapped at his windowsill. Before him, his neighbours’ half-submerged terraced houses formed the opposite bank of a milk-white river, where once his street had run. To his left, the ground sloped away, with the houses and even taller buildings in the distance gradually swallowed whole. The spire was all that was left of the church, transformed into a lonely obelisk at the centre of a wide lake, the surface of which was totally becalmed. The horizon beyond was indiscernible.

He remembered being driven past flooded fields as a child, near his home town. The agricultural consequences had been remote and irrelevant to him—instead, his imagination had been struck by the magic of the everyday rendered extraordinary. Simply by the incongruous appearance of one unexpected element, he had been transported to another reality. He now found himself there again. This was the world from which the fog and the condensates came, he decided—that same, flooded world, which sometimes rolled against the tide of causality to bleed into ours. It carried an echo of the future, as if it were imbued with the assurance of a prophecy fulfilled. It had witnessed and long since forgotten the death of civilisation. It was a comfortingly peaceful place. It was transcendent. Beautiful.

Although the distant lake appeared glasslike, directly beneath his window he could see slow eddies and thickly swirling currents, which belied this frozen impression. As the sun began to rise, its nascent rays scattered over the fog, which blushed and then was set ablaze with rose-gold light. Wisps of evaporating mist licked unpredictably across the surface—intertwining, merging, annihilating—all with a gracefully untroubled serenity. The sun came up further and the fog began to burn away, deferentially accepting that its time had ended—or not yet come. Perhaps its dispersal was an illusion and it was rather draining into the earth, seeking the cool comfort of the underground, to emerge again in the creeping dusk; it was just as easy to believe that either possibility were true, simply by tilting his head.

Regardless of whether the fog was departing for above or below, it had begun to leave behind a sheen of glistening moisture. The houses, lamp posts and trees, everything seemed to be sculpted from glacial ice, slowly melting in the strengthening sun. In places, this began to accumulate and condense into dew, slowing coalescing further into droplets, which reluctantly succumbed to the entreaties of gravity. Each arrived at the shifting surface expecting a liquid embrace, but instead plummeted below with surprise, to be dashed unseen against the ground, leaving behind only the unfulfilled expectation of ripples. The birds, having awoken from their stupor, skimmed recklessly above the departing fog, flitting between the falling droplets, reclaiming the cleared air for themselves with emboldened song.

He continued to watch until the last vestiges of vapour had retreated. A perfectly normal morning ostensibly remained. He turned away from the window and glanced around the room; apart from the missing camera, it appeared unchanged. He somehow knew that he would find something below. He went downstairs to discover what the fog had wanted to say to him today.