background character

I can’t stand this heat. After a year, summer’s knocking at the door again, punctual as ever, and I’m already fed up with it. The sweat, the sun, the ever-so-still air, nothing can help me get through this. Somewhere, the faint buzz of a ventilator disrupts the stagnant silence. I can hear its motor whirring, left to right, right to left. The tiny gusts of air it brings blow across my face, quite useless against the heat. I stand in the shade, under tree branches or next to dying houseplants, trying to find shelter from this searing heat. Voices, erupting from a faraway radio, keep time from standing still; otherwise, I fear that it would stop too. The ice in my cup has melted a long time ago (or has it been only a few minutes ? I never know). The condensation around the glass drips on the wooden floor, steady as clockwork, but it’s too hot for me to do anything about it. I can feel the sun behind the closed blinds; its scorching flares loom over me, threatening to invade my somewhat cooler-than-the-outside room. And I might just give into this dazzling glare, calling me outside with the might of a thousand irresistible sirens. But it’s too hot for me to move. The cadence of time itself has become sticky with sweat, giving me a taste of an uncomfortable eternity. I really don’t like summer.

Night’s dark undertones and damp stuffiness surround me, now. Ella Fitzgerald’s Summertime is playing in the background. I can’t fall asleep. I could never, in this heat. The living is not that easy, Gershwin, or maybe I’m missing the point. I rehash the same routine, every night: go to bed, fight with the covers, throw them out, get up, have a drink, feel even warmer from having moved an inch, go back to bed, and start again from the beginning. This season is playing on repeat, lazy and blank. It drives me insane, I think, the heat. There’s no doubt about it: I’d tear my skin off if I could. It’s just two months of empty, hollow fever from which I cannot run because, well, it would make me even hotter. It never falters, even in the dead of the night. I fidget and wriggle endlessly, uneasy and awkward. My body is wet with sweat and sticky with weariness, scratchy from all the mosquito bites. Every year, I ask myself (in a rather dramatic way, I must admit) how I’m going to survive. Permanent dark circles under my eyes and pesky sunburns become my everyday reality, as every night leaves me burnt and exhausted. I long for the chilly bite of Autumn to come rescue me at last as I wobble between restless sleep and febrile states. This summer heat will get the best of me, I just know it, as I plunge deeper into nocturnal madness.

But morning always comes, and with it arrives the promise of a breath of fresh air. The golden and orange dawn brings salvation and time starts moving again, for a brief moment. I open my windows and, at last, I feel freshness in the crisp breeze of sunrise. And it’s incredible. In that tiny instant, I feel renewed, a rush of invincible power and determination washing over me. My head clears just as clouds leave the skies; a strong mind in a strong body, or at least that’s how the saying goes, perhaps. An entire day full of endless possibilities opens up to me, sprawled at my feet like an idle cat. I’m thinking of having a day at the beach or a lazy afternoon, nodding off on the soft grass. I finally break free from the moisture and the overall uncomfortableness that summer has become for me. And, for one moment, everything slows down, mild and warm instead of harsh and boiling hot. For one moment, I can hear myself think, coolness washing over me. For one moment, I quite fancy an ice cream, I long to be a kid again, running around in circles until my breath stops and I fall down with laughter. For one moment, I have to concede: maybe summer isn’t so bad after all.