I

A fog follows her. Substantive. Palpable

It came, drifting innocuously, an evening...she can't exactly recall. Things are unsettlingly bizarre...frightening. She cannot-is it since the fog came?- seem to walk beyond this neighbourhood, a looping lonely crescent of immaculate landscapes and magnificent homes. And incongruously,  a mall. She has no impetus to go further. Naggingly discomfitting; but she can't quite care.

And more.

It all frightens her.

II

It's been days; her employer strangely, hasn't inquired. Her mother hasn't phoned. No one has.

She calls her mother nearly every day. And if more than a day passes  'Mother calls me'.

But she is incapable of active concern and shrugs it off.

III

There are other things. 

As if she is somehow removed...and there is something...something she ought to do. It nudges at her insistently. She struggles to grasp it slips away she is unable to summon the will to pursue it.

She walks-how many days now- aimlessly through the area, strolling the gardens of the mansions wandering through the halls and rooms. Free of interference. Another strangeness, wrongness. But it eludes fullness, sublimated by her enchantment and joy in the gardens.

She talks. No one she knows, yet, someway familiar. All the people she meets. The strange faces greet her, smilingly, as an old friend.

She eats. At the cafe. There is never any one else. The cook. The waitress. Herself. Though the tables , cluttered, evidence a brisk trade.

She is living at the motel-why not home?- slips out of her clothes and crawls under the garish quilted coverlet, nestling comfortably.

And sits up violently frantically glancing around terrifyingly disoriented.

IV

She sits. Serene. The wild panic of a few hours ago seems a dream. She rises, leaves the room and enters the lunchroom the clatter and hum of the morning coffee break 10:07  on the clock confirms,

V

and it's there. Again. Something tugging at her mind.

Several heads turn with amusement playing on faces. "Late for coffee, Jill?" one teases.

And she has it.

Strands of information converge. Interact. She wakes. Snippets...phone work not at home mom late morning something to do

The fog lifts.

She sits up. Laughs joyously to the form beside her, leaps from the bed scrambling into scattered clothing- "Making love with you gives me the sweetest dreams"- recalling her thrall in the  gardens. Squirms feet into sneakers- "We didn't set the alarm I'm late"- and rushes out the door still grooming and buttoning; over her shoulder," I love you "