Haze

Now, Lacey, she was teaching herself to run. Or, that is, to like it. She wanted to form some habits, she decided, and she started so many that it seemed she was in the habit of forming habits. She was now always making her bed in the morning. She was now making her lunch before bed. She was sure to call her parents every Sunday. And she was running after work. She would get home, change clothes, and run. Lacey worked for an accounting firm, a decent job, she told people, because she didn't want to get into it any more than that. Her office was so similar to that of her previous job at the law firm that somedays she wasn't sure if she was moving upward or downward. And so she ran, to clear her head, and it made her feel good.

It was the first proper day of spring, it was how spring should be. After work, Lacey ran to the great expanse of Lake Michigan to find many with similar ideas. People were showing skin and enjoying the breeze. She paused a moment to stretch and take in the city behind her, and though it wasn't fog, there did seem to be some faint haze laying across the city's bottom half. It couldn't be fog, she thought. Fog's little brother. It was something.

Lacey got onto the path and ran. People passed her, on foot, on bikes, but she didn't care, this time is hers. She could stop if she wanted to, but she didn't, because that's not how habits are formed. Only a few weeks into this new thing and she was already finding it easier, to go a little farther, to breathe a little deeper.

She saw some middle-aged woman throw scraps to the gulls, attempting to take a picture of the avian frenzy, to capture some sort of real moment, and Lacey hated her in the small way you hate a stranger. She kept running.

She came up behind some kid, some teenage boy with a skateboard and a tattoo on the back of his neck, saying to his friend, "What a beautiful goddamn day." Lacey didn't appreciate his cursing. It tainted this new sunlight. She sped up, passed him, and kept running.

There was a couple, dark hair and olive complexions, taking pictures of themselves with the great blue background. She saw so many people with cameras it made her feel as though she were the only one without one, the only one not doing enough to freeze time.

She stopped running when she got to a beach, one of the many beaches that lined the city. It looked deserted, which Lacey thought was odd for such a beautiful day. This was farther than she'd ever gotten before. She took off her running shoes and sport socks and dug her toes deep, deep into the sand. It was so soft and white, no midwestern sand, how could it be? She took a handful, lowered her head, and put it on the back of her neck. It was so cool.

Lacey walked to where the water met the sand. She saw only blue before her. A blend of water and sky with only the breeze to tell them apart. She looked behind her in the direction from where she came. The city was gone. The path curved enough where you couldn't see it. And with the city vanished and the sand beneath her feet and the blue before her, she felt as though she were somewhere else entirely. And she dreaded going back, but this is how habits are formed. Lacey wondered, shoes in hand, if perhaps that haze had grown, and thickened, and swallowed the city whole, so that she wouldn't see it no matter where she was.