Short Story Inspired by Utica: Haint in the Fog (Work-in-Progress)

The sun hasn’t come up yet, but Protéa has. She’s at a park in Utica smoking a short blunt. The smoke she blows blends with the misty fog around her.

Her stream of conciousness is spiraling. Consumed with self-talk about her life, her job, her recent relocation to an even smaller town than where she’s from. She inhales slowly and exhales with intention. Noticing her surroundings to pull herself from drowning in her self-doubt, she observes the grass covered by a blanket of morning dew. The tip toes of her Addidas have wet stains and specks of dirt and her jeans, that she’s worn for the past week, have traces of kush on them from rolling her blunt in her lap. She dusts it off. A tree branch or stick snaps nearby. She looks toward the sound. All she sees are the blurry silhouttes of the dead trees and powerline poles. A faint glowing light from somone’s porch in the distance. A shape of a person in the fog.

Protéa takes a step closer to her car, keeping her eyes locked on the figure. It could be nothing, but whatever it is, it appears to be watching and feeling. It moved gently through the still bluish-gray fog. Suddenly, Protéa felt nothing. She couldn’t take another step. It was like time stopped and all she could do was breathe and feel the weight of this being. She thought she was afraid, but the tension in her body eased. The ghostly figure floated towards her. There was no sound other than a constant chirp of a cricket somewhere in the grass. In the fog, only Protéa and the haint existed.

The haint belonged there with Protéa. She summoned it by soaking her mind and spirit in misery.

Months ago, Protéa made a decision to resign from her glorified position at the Museum in Memphis where she was making more money than she ever made. Rooms lite up when she walked in. She was well-connected and her colleagues celebrated her creativity and character. She left all of that behind. Everything and everyone. Thanks to her ungodly belief in self-sabotage in order to reinvent herself, she found herself in the darkest places of her mind. During these dark months, she found light in her creativity. Her muses continued to show up for her.

She submitted her cover letter, resume, and creative portfolios to organizations across the country. A Shakespeare theatre in Chicago. A children’s book-publishing company in New York. With each interview, with each “we’ve chosen another candidate,” and with each passing month, Protéa felt lower about herself. Everything was low, at this point. Her money. Her energy. Her hope. However, she persisted. She found a role at arts and culture production house in Utica, Mississippi where she could rise and thrive. They were happy to have her. To them, she was God-sent.

Protéa is standing face to face with a haint. Her grandmothers warned her about moments like this. “You got to keep dem hanks off yo’ back, Chile,” she remembers her great-great-grandmother, Big Mama, saying from her big leather recliner. The haint has no distinguishable features, but Protéa sees her inner turmoil in its eyes. She can see her anxiety in its heartbeat. Her butterflies are in its stomach.

The haint reached out to Protéa. She blinked a slow blink as the haint absorbed the tears from her eyes. She gave it her doubt, any fears she had lingering about herself. At last, she was seen with all her darkness. And she was able to give it way. She watched it dissipate with the haint in the fog.