The Mist

We watched The Mist on Sky and enjoyed scaring each other and larking about pretending to be pulled out of the room by an unseen monster etc. Unfortunately, during the early hours of this morning, a local factory caught fire and a helicopter swooped over the houses telling everyone to close windows and doors and remain inside. Of course, at the time, we did not know about the factory fire, only the scary helicopter. On looking out of the window we could see a dark patch in the night sky which of course we now know was smoke; even at the time we knew, logically, that it was smoke really but with the film fresh in our minds our eyes were on stalks. My Daughter was convinced that we should plug any little cracks in case "whatever it was" should seep in, her imagination heightened by the film. Whenever I went near the window to hear the helicopter message better she would shriek "don't open it, it might be toxic". A sensible assumption, but I had no intention of flinging open all the windows in the middle of the night. At one point she suggested we go and look for a gas mask that she has seen in the attic. Where the hec she spotted that and why the hec it is up there I don't know but she was quite hopeful that I would go and look for it. How we would have shared it between three if us if by some fluke of luck I had found it, who knows. Her Dad had long since gone back to bed by that point so maybe he would have dipped out on his turn at the gas mask. She had to content herself with holding her dressing gown across her face as if it was made of some special filtering material. To try and allay her fears I turned on the news which was a big mistake as it was all about Korea and nuclear testing and as her geographical knowledge extends about as far as Preston she put two and two together and made 8000, aka the approximate distance between here and Seoul. I suggested that they wouldn't be chatting about football,healthy eating and Susan Boyle if we were in any danger but she declared that Morecambe would take second place to any of that as they were "all Southern". As daylight came and a sweep of the internet produced no local news she then decided that the birds were not singing and this was a sure sign that the air was toxic. Fortunately a cat could be seen strolling unconcernedly across the road, and she couldn't hear any birds because she was as far away from any windows as possible. Daylight also brought some sanity and we eventually went to bed at 6.30, vowing not to watch any horror films for a long time, and the odd grumble that the helicopter should come back and say if you can go out or not!  When she got up at lunch time and found me digging in the garden she demanded "how do you know it's safe to go out!" as the smells of various neighbours barbecues wafted across the garden and the bowling green announcements punctuated the whir of flymos.