I once heard a Tale about the city of fog.
It exists only three warmest summer days in a year. The fog from far in the bay flows through redwoods, farms, and valleys. It settles on a vast body of water, crystallized into the wood, steel, lotus, and flame. A featherweight city then emerges. Soft rhythms chanted by souls of travelers echos with the city’s ether. Every minute it changes its shape.
Yet the city is ephemeral. It starts to fade the second it is touched by flesh and bone. Just like the cold morning haze vanish under the scorching sun.
Years after years, travelers cross mountains, valleys, and rivers, searching for an entrance. They hike days and weeks for a visit, to look through a foggy crystal ball and catch a glimpse of the shape of a utopia. No map can navigate you to the city of fog. The city shapes in water and haze, emerges and disappears each year in the most unexpected place. Sometimes they follow a school of wild geese. Sometimes they see the white masts among the reeds. Sometimes, they hear songs of the siren followed by a floating bush of lotus flower.
A city so light cannot bear a body so heavy for longer than three days. The city cleanses the soul and the bodies of travelers. So deep and so through that their bodies almost become another cloud fog. Those who stay longer will have their body claimed by the fog and can never return. City of bricks, glass, and steel crushed these clearest souls with heavy air and burning pain.
Many determined to come back after their first pilgrimage. Travelers are gifted with a piece of the fog once they sing and dance and clean themselves by the water below. The piece resides in their soul and occasionally function as a compass to lead their way back.
Travelers find themselves unable to describe the city’s beauty and wonder when tried to tell their journey within the city. Photos and diaries blurred when touched the scorching sun and heavy air in the default world. But these who came back determined to build a lighter city among the cities of glass, bricks, steel, and concretes. They write books and code, maintain products and structures, build houses and campfires. Creations among chaos. An invisible city above the visible ones.
The legend of the city of fog can only be told through the language of fog, just as wisdom can only be through enigma. But if you ever travel there, you will be able to catch the spirit of the city glimmering in myth, objects, and other travelers. And as the wind blows away the fog, the legend of the city of fog spread slow and far to many corners of the tangible city
If you listen carefully enough, you find the city’s legend scattered around default worlds. It is a hidden ticket, a portal, a ferry, waiting to welcome the next enchanted traveler to its harbor and heart.
End Notes:
I went to Ephemerisle for two weekends last summer. We tied floats, barges, sailboats and floating art pieces together to create multiple islands. We read poems, do siren dance, rinse ourselves in water. I wrote this piece to help me decompress the magical sense of belonging and utopia.
