The Morning Fog

The light streaming in through the window when Anna awoke at 6am told her that the fog had rolled in again overnight, and that it would likely not burn off until much later. She could tell from the heft of it, the gradation of the gray color. So she got up, and sleepily picked out layers to wear for her morning commute to the cafe. The apartment was mostly quiet, except for the noise of traffic from the street three stories below.

Her roommate James, was already gone, as he often was, off to drive for one of the taxi service apps that were all the rage in this new gig economy. Almost all of James' free time, when not at his parttime teaching job, was spent driving now, so they rarely saw one another in person. Instead they developed a habit of sending random, sometimes passive aggressive, texts about how "someone" must've forgot it was garbage day and that the pet fruit flies were thrilled; or reminders about how thin the walls are, and a disinterest in hearing the other's latest binge show, with a link to buy headphones attached. She would be annoyed, but Anna had heard so many truly awful roommate horror stories from other people online, that she considered herself an overall winner in the roommate lottery. She knew one of the hardest things about being a transplant in this city, was finding an apartment you could afford with a person who you could tolerate. James was at least mostly clean and quiet, and he always paid the rent on time.

After a quick shower, she made herself a coffee and took it to go while checking the bus schedule on her phone, and realizing that if she ran she could catch the express line, which was gonna pull up to her street in 2 minutes, three blocks away. So she jogged down the sidewalk, deftly avoiding a few unhoused neighbors who were curled up in a few of the doorways nearby with a small pile of stray garbage, masquerading as warmth. She continued on, passing a few slower moving elderly couples making their way down the block, one arguing in a foreign language, the other silently shuffling with hands clasped tightly. She brushed past a dude on his phone with a medium sized mutt straining at the leash, growling at a rat that had ducked under the nearest parked car. As she passed the liquor store, she could hear an angry confrontation going on inside, as outside one of the local sots asked her for money. There were others too, like her, with earbuds in, backpacks and layers on, just trying to make their way to transport themselves to work or school, without too much trouble, or eye contact.

She looked back and could see the 28X bus barrelling toward her, even as she was still a block away from the stop. Luckily though, the stop light was about to change, and so the bus would have to stop. She knew if she waited through the light, she would miss the bus, and have to take the regular 28 which took twice as long to get to her stop, so she waited for the briefest break in the cross traffic and then jaywalked/ran to cross the street and down to the bus stop before the bus could pull up. There were 20 or so others waiting already, so she knew it was gonna be a full ride to downtown. She squeezed in on the back door, held onto the handbar, cast her eyes out the window over the seated heads of strangers, and tried not to gag on the various smells wafting around her. Her main objective for any commute, was to stick by the nearest exit and avoid confrontation. Today, she was successful.

Once downtown, she checked her phone, and noticed that she was making good time and could walk at a leisurely pace to go the last 9 blocks to work, as opposed to getting on her 2nd bus on 5th street. Here, the people Anna passed by were varied and many. Men in suits and khakis, and women pushing toy dogs in strollers, or in heels rushing off to a meeting, bike messengers hopping off their steeds to deliver into certain doorways, tourists of all kinds checking their maps, or waiting in lines, two boys drumming on overturned 5 gallon buckets for lunch money, doormen eyeing her lasciviously, old women looking lost and bewildered, young people who took the train in from neighboring burroughs to attend the community college economics branch, and of course several more homeless people sitting in doorways, or standing on corners with hands outstretched. She watched them all, with a praticed way of seeing while not being seen. She got a text from her mom while walking, and decided to ignore it till later. Her destination kept her afoot and moving steadily, while taking it all in, and letting none of it touch her.

When she arrived at the cafe, she hung her layers in the back, put her apron on, and clocked in. She nodded to the kitchen crew, and said a few hellos, as she went out to the counter to check the levels of ketchup and coffee. Anna liked to stay task oriented, so that the day flew by more quickly, and so it was clear she was there to work, so that managers and other people didn't bother her too much.

With customers, she stayed friendly, light, and quickly got them what they wanted. Mostly these were in and out business types on a lunch break, or having a quick bite before heading to the airport. But sometimes there were regulars, who lived downtown, and liked to come in for the cheap food and people watching. These always took some interest in her, tried to pry a little into her life and mind, by making asides to her about the other guests or commenting on such things as local politics, the state of the world. She had formed certain canned responses to many of these, enough to show she had opinions, but also that she didn't really care to share them. She was leery of the people who seemed too interested, as her experience with these people was that eventually they always wanted something... her time, possibly her money, maybe her friendship, or her body. None of that ever came to much good, so she tried to just be kind enough, and hope for the same basic kindness in return.

As the day went by, and the sun started to drop in the west, Anna finished closing her receipts up and tallied the tips, handed a bit of them to Jorge at the dishpit, grabbed her things and started to wend her way back home. This time, for a change of scenery, she walked to 10th street and up past the courthouse, the theatres, and galleries there. She saw there was a small farmer's market and went past the stalls to see what the season brought to offer. She waited patiently, while a woman asked a bunch of questions to the vendor of the stand that had jujubees. These were her favorite fruit, that only came but a few weeks in the year, and she never remembered which weeks those were. At the end of the market were some more homeless people, and a few political hawkers asking her to sign petitions that she didn't much care about. She walked past the library, and carefully considered going in to check the newest books out, but decided that perhaps she had enough of people for the day, and that it was time to get back to the 28 line and head home.

On the bus, sardined in once again, she played some trippy electronic music, and her hand started to cramp holding the bar, as her mind wandered to traveling someplace with jungles or beaches, and air that smelled of flowers. She passed a small commotion at a building where a firetruck and ambulance were parked, and people had gathered to watch a man being taken out by stretcher. She got home just in time to find James on his way back out to drive again. She mentioned the firetruck, and he said "there's always something going on here", and then he was out the door.

Anna then made herself a small pasta dinner, grabbed the bottle of wine on the counter and went in to her room where she checked her emails, which were mostly spam, and she texted her mom, who lived several states away, to say she hoped that she had a good day. Then she turned on her latest Netflix fascination, and watched until it got pretty late. She could hear her neighbors having a fight through the wall, and so she turned on a sleep music podcast and tried to ignore them. Tomorrow was another day, and she wondered if the morning would bring the fog back in.