A thick static has settled behind Drew Hixson’s eyes; an unmapped drift brought on by shifting treatments, fresh prescriptions, and new chemistry recalibrating in the dark. Foggy as heck, floating somewhere between thought and silence, but entirely at home in the haze.
Growing up along the raw edge of Matunuck, Rhode Island, Drew learned early that fog wasn't an absence, but a shroud. When the weather rolled in heavy off the shoreline, the world simply ceased to see, and to be invisible was to be safe. On the nights when shouting broke against the walls and home became an untenable place, there was always the third-story window. A quiet slip into the damp air, a direct line drawn to the cold sand of Moonstone Beach, and a retreat into the arms of Mother Ocean. It was her breath that rolled up from the water to cloak the roads and swallow the shoreline whole,washing away what couldn't be carried.
Now the coastal mist has found a way inside. Thoughts blur at the perimeter, time slips, and Drew wanders through the quiet interior weather; waiting on the tide to turn.
