Dying From The Heat

It’s HOT. 96 degrees F., but “feels like 104,” the Weather Channel says. I don’t have air conditioning at home. Shouldn’t need it, living upstate New York twenty minutes south of the Canadian border. It’s TOO HOT. Uneasily, uncannily, unbelievably HOT. 

Last winter, a friend who’s up on global warming sent me an article with this catastrophic prediction: within forty years Earth will be TOO HOT for human habitation. Did I take it seriously? Please. It was deep winter, temps below zero. Today, it is SO FREAKISHLY HOT, I believe it’s possible. Even probable. Even happening right now.

I crank up the energy to feel bad for Son and his generation. After that, reclining and breathing pushes the limit.  And I have so many things to do. One of which is writing this post. 

Ideas pant their way to the surface, then just lie there, spent. Happy to die. Easy come, easy go, they sigh, drifting back to wherever they came from. A faint impulse to clutch at them comes… and goes.

Maybe that’s what dying will be like. I’ll notice Death coming, not have the energy to do anything about it, and let it happen. No. Wait. The other way. I’ll notice Life going, not have the energy to do anything about it, and let it happen. Either way, not bad. I can live with it.

But not if I don’t drink some water STAT. I’m so parched I could drink the pool. Iced. Forget the ice. Too much trouble. You too? I’ll get us straws. 

PHOTO CREDIT: Ferdi's-World