Mirage

July 6, 2018. Likely the hottest day this year. My car, the one without AC, says it’s 111F outside. We race down the highway, trying to take off from the blazing planet like a bird. We’re up to illegal speeds, all the windows down (except the broken one), hoping the rush will create a breeze. Instead, it’s a motionless heat blanket, hotter than hot. So hot you can smell the wild fennel bulbs baking in the dirt on the side of the road. So hot that a deer carcass we pass looks blacked, like an honest to god barbeque. I’ve never seen that before.

I half expect the grasslands to spontaneously combust before our eyes. Every truck we pass smells like melting tires. Everywhere that skin touches skin feels like swampland, but every time I resettle a sweat-slick limb and create something like a stirring of the air, it feels like glory hallelujah. I expect to see the tiny metal lotus of my necklace searing a brand into my flesh, but reality denies me all the comforts of drama. I can feel the acid in my stomach beginning to simmer, making me sick. I want to get out and run in a panic circle, shouting the adult version of “fuuuuuuuuudge” like a wild animal that’s suddenly realized that its habitat is not conducive to life.

Instead, I drive on, afraid that if I stop the heat will be worse, an oppressive punch to the jaw that won’t let me up again. But I have two kids in the back seat. I pull off the freeway and park. I feel dizzy as the car slows. I step out, sway to the left, sway to the right. Yell at them to put their shoes back on. Why is it always the shoes? We make it inside where all I can say in answer to “how are you today?” is a demure, “toasty”, as the gal might be startled if I told her the truth.

For the first time in my life, I feel like I might be paying less than Starbucks is worth. Yelling is forgotten as I regain my humanity and we pretend we’re explorers in the Sahara. We make it the last 20 minutes home, where it’s a tepid 86 degrees. But the grande cup of ice we just got is pure liquid.

[artwork by Bjoern Ewers]