“What the hell are you doing, man?”
“I’m waiting… I’m…waiting.”
Xavier was lying on his bed with the curtains drawn slightly open. A thin, blue light trickled into his bedroom, where a fan was limply spinning its blades and whirring under the strain. His mind had been occupied for many days now. In fact, he had not felt like himself; so much had he thought about this room, about this city, about this country prior to his arrival, that he felt he was not living in them; he was living inside of a storybook. The heat was the only reminder that he had done anything significant recently.
‘That’s it…’ he thought to himself. ‘I must drop this… I must stop this story-book idea…’ He put a hand on top of his head and began scratching. His hair, usually long and free-flowing, was matted with sweat and tied back to keep him cool. ‘I cannot believe it… for so long I have been so clear, so steady, so focussed… why now… why now can I not see things, see things as they really are?’
His mind wanted to attack itself, so sudden had been the transformation. He could work still, just, but each movement of his arms and hands felt heavy, as though time had slowed for him alone, and everyone else was continuing at their usual, lively pace. His imagination, so often a friend of his, took on a new strength, a certain independence, and began to torment him with assaults of doubt and fantasy. In a word, the man was descending into a hot kind of madness, unable even to open the window and breathe the cool, fresh air he was used to.
It was a good thing that he was relaxed. Xavier Alexandre Diau was a man known for his relaxation. He was a tall, upright sort of fellow, who did not live up to his glamourous name and made no pretence about it. He read books, enjoyed going for walks, and had few friends - although the people he kept as friends knew exactly why, and neither he nor they felt he was missing out. There was in his eyes a genuine warmth, but a fragile one; a warmth that could easily be lost at the slightest distraction, to the point where his actions sometimes became erratic and unpredictable. His was quick to forgive others, and a little slower to forgive himself. And here he was, in the unbearable heat, distracted.
‘I will stop this…’ he thought to himself, ‘I must stop this… these… these ideas…what are they… imagination!’ He rolled over on to his side, but was uncomfortable, so rolled to his other side, uncomfortable still. ‘They are nothing but thoughts… invented scripts for behaviour… what a fool, what a fool I have been…’
At that moment, something in the back of his head laughed. From somewhere at the top of his neck - that center of breath that travels to the hips, to the stomach, to the heart - something, that could almost be recognised as the chuckle of an elderly man, began to bubble. A feeling not of thought, a feeling not of despair, but a feeling of honest, loving experience. It took hold of him in that instant, running over his body, cooling his blood, clearing his mind, and then retreated, as quickly as it had appeared. He was back in the heat.
But he felt something had shifted, quite suddenly. So suddenly; as though he had been blind, totally blind, up until that very moment. He rolled to lie again on his back, comfortable, to some degree. His breath became deeper, longer, more drawn-out. The heat still pressed up against his skin; it had devoured him, led him momentarily astray…
But the heat was like the seasons, he felt - it was the seasons. It would pass, it would pass, like the lot of it! Damn the storybook - there was nothing more to it! ‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘I see it… I was consumed, but now, again… I see!’ He reached for his phone and dialled Pierre immediately, giving a detailed and honest account of his recent madness.
“What the hell are you doing, man?!” Pierre demanded.
Xavier felt something like humour, something like embarassment - but did not feel the heat. He decided to answer the question with the conclusions he had so recently drawn. A quiet, knowing hum shuddered through his veins.
“I’m waiting… I’m… waiting.”
read the original story (BBC News):
Global heat: Extreme autumn sets up 2023 to break records - BBC News
The views expressed in this publication do not reflect the views of the author. The stories themselves are based on imagined events. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is fictitious and should not be taken as representative.
I was out early evening yesterday on my bicycle and it was baltic! When young I used to go swimming in the sea at Anstruther and it was cold! 60 years later I went in and it was still cold!? I lived in Australia in hottest part, Pilbara and have contacts there and no worse!? Panama was there in 80s and son there just now, says same as years before, hot and humid!? Just recently headlines in the MSM was that Brechin, SCOTLAND was evacuated. Have a friend that lives there and he said that it was the same area that has been flooded for hundreds of years and they built on it so it was one small area! Now going back to when I was in my early twenties we were told that by 2000 there would be no ice or polar bears. Well the ice is still there and the polar bears do not have the fur coats off and sunning them selves!? How many predictions and goal posts have been moved and even by our PERVERSE SAVILE LOVING KING!
As Adrian Joseph Cronauer said "It's hot, damn hot"