The Disguise of Fog

Darkness came in thick fog. I needed to pull off the highway in Saskatchewan to rest. I get out of my car and am shrouded in the misty night air. The sign reads “Welcome to Sleepy Hollow Campground”. I chuckle. How cute! Then I notice a few old cars, rusted, doors falling off, and one has a huge gash mark across the side. Am I dreaming or did I just enter a Stephen King movie? I muster up my nerve and enter the office. A radio is playing in the background, crackling every so often with static. I quickly scan the room. I see piles of papers, a coffee mug, and random personal effects; evidence that someone is here somewhere. I catch sight of a bunch of tools in the corner, a few pieces of chopped wood, and the axe. Yikes! I must be dreaming. I walk outside to scan the lot. That’s when I see it. A looming, shadowy figure hobbling towards me, hunched over with arms swinging, something in hand. I’m thinking “run for your life!” It speaks. I turn around half expecting to scream. Instead I want to burst out laughing. What appeared from the mist was a tiny little hunched-back man. Perhaps if he were as burly as he appeared in the fog, then I might have screamed. It turns out that this sleepy hollow was exactly that; a quiet little refuge inside a hollow of highway, removed from time in a blanket of fog.