A Letter to The Fog Concerning The Fog

Dear people I can only guess are still there,

I want you to know that we can all still see, and I being part of we, can also still see. But, I can't still see you. I can't see you because I can't know you because I don't understand you. And since we see to know and knowing is the beginning of understanding, I can't see you.

You are sight unseen and I am seer unsighted and that is something that I cannot stand to stand.

And, that is why I want to give you a gift. You and all the people I have trouble seeing. I wish to make my own world clearer to me by letting those not seen see what I see, and know that trying to know them is like knowing an unknowable.

Like knowing a flame.

You can remember a flame. You can recognize a flame. You can detect a flame. But you can no more know a flame than you can know the past or a god. Just as it is with them whose actions make them detectable in my life and nothing more. And, it is the unknown to what I wish to give the gift of my clarity.

But, how do you give a gift to something that you're not even sure is there? You can't. Giving is from one to another and since I am just one I have to leave, instead of give.

I will take my clarity, a piece of it that I can spare, and I will leave it hear for you. When you find it, I hope you know what to do with it, for as I cannot see you, I have no instructions with how to use it. But here I will leave it; the boundaries of my own sight. The things I cannot see. I hope in these boundaries you can find yourself, and know why you are obscured.

*

I cannot see the blind hatred of innocent sadness.

I think I might have started to glimpse it one day, briefly in a lit hall. A traveler faced a piece of a journey that few find welcome. A bend in the road that lead back up a hill. A bend that would make anyone question the path, regardless of the age of the asker.

I saw the traveler clearly, and I saw his question, and then I saw anger. Not from the traveler but from the guide. Anger at the traveler for doubting the path. Anger at the question. Anger at the resistance. And, finally, anger at the innocent sadness of a traveler. A sadness only traveler's can know, but since we are all traveler's, a sadness that should relate to all of us.

That's when I lost them both in the haze of my own blindness.

The anger had become to alien for my eyes, and I could only hear the traveler, wail his begs for forgiveness. Pleading to an angry God. Promising humility in exchange for calm waves and safe return home.

*

I cannot see revenge for perceived future.

Sometimes arrows come from the fog. Found in the air by my senses. Heard and felt. The fog twists and clouds into soft silhouettes, and then the arrows come. The arrows come from the past of an untold future. They come from the plan of someone's mind. A plan built upon a past or present transgression that one wouldn't think has foundation enough to support another's structure. But that structure stands, and is the home of the archers. An unstable and dangerous domicile, yes, but archers being archers, they need not a steady building to fulfill their obligations. Only a platform to lift them to the medium of their art. Over the tree line. Overlooking the glade.

Being unable to catch sight of the towering barracks, the source of malcontent, I simply wait. I wait for the arrows to come from the fog from archers hired, and highered, by the sheriffs of some similar village. And when the arrows strike my body with no armor, I pull them out for a brief fond moment, as I recognize the wood of the shaft, as being from my own forest.

*

I cannot see relinquishment over assumption.

There was a carriage traveling past and I could see the driver. The driver was urgent on the horses, as an escapee would be. But the traveler was alone on the road. There was no other carriage or soul, save what could have passed for a passenger. I say this because I could not see the passenger. Covered by the cloak of the carriage curtains the passenger remained only a possibility, but a probable one.

So, I road up next to the driver and asked why the need. My answer was an increase in speed. And a look. Towards the cabin of this carriage. A cabin that could be concealing a cacogenic cargo. I asked again why the speed and looked ahead of myself to make sure I was still keeping my own way.

When I looked back I could no longer see the driver.

The cloak that so cleverly concealed the cargo was now curiously covering the current captain.

But the driver I could still see. Clearly visible as there was no cloak, no cabin, no where at all for her to lie as the carriage sped along its path.

The driver was being dragged. Caught, by the caballine cabriolet, careening into a canyon of carnificial cacotopia. Claimed at the clambake of her own cataclysmic catachresis.

She was being shredded under wheel for having the assumption that she could simply escape her cargo. Torn to pieces by the dirt and stone sander she, herself, had brought to this fatal speed. Not fully realizing that her speed in no way separated the driver from the passenger, but only made it that much easier for the loss of control the passenger ultimately, and so desperately, yearned for.

*

So, here I have left my clarity, defined by its limits, for those that don't understand why I squint in their direction. My gift to those I truly can't know. Given selfishly so that I may gain more vision for myself, but, intended selflessly so that the collective sight will gain in the big picture.

Maybe after taking my gift, you could give me one of your own. Something given to me selfishly, but, intended to be given selflessly. So, that I can be seen better; perhaps only by myself.

Because if we all understand that we need to see, and we all understand that we need to be seen, and to be seen is to be known and to be known helps us know, maybe, we would try a little harder to be a little clearer. Maybe then those things that are so hard to see will no longer need to be defined, because they won't exist to require definition.

Sincerely,
Chiggie Von Richthofen
Remembered. Recognized. Detected. But hardly seen.