Heat

A very hot day.
So hot that you feel like you could melt. The perception of fabric on your skin becomes too high to be bearable, and there are so many things to do. But you just lay there, in your bed. Not underneath the blanket of course. It’s already too hot and you try to be motionless. Perhaps you hoped the heat would take you for a statue. Perhaps it did, and that is why you lose touch with reality, more and more. With every passing second, you forget who you are, you forget what you’re doing here. Your room. Is it your room? Is it my room? Think about it, look at the ceiling. It’s white, there’s an artisanal light on it. Some flowers are encrusted into it. They’ve been dry for years now.
You feel like them somehow. You see all the books you could read, all the work you could do, all the things you could change if you just moved. Not a big move, you know. Simply lifting a finger would be enough. The hand would follow. The blood would flood the veins of the wrist – it’s so hot after all. But the arm would come after the hand, and in the end, an entire body would get up. So slow to the eyes of its kin. So fast regarding the course of time. But we do not regard the course of time, nor the grand scheme of things, no.
Anyway, look at the time. You’ve already wasted half an hour on this meaningless train of thought. It would be time to actually do things that matter, wouldn’t it?
But then. Another thought pops up. What if you drifted off to sleep. Your eyelids are so heavy. Maybe they’ve even been closed this whole time. It would seem so. It feels so natural…
So
easy

to let



it
go


Wake up. There’s no choice now. You tried to make the dream last for so long… It was a nice try. But now, the cliff is gone, the heat is back, and you’re conscious of your dislocated body even more than before.
Hot days do that to us, don’t they? Your mind slows down, as if the gears in your head were rusty. You feel liquid, finally aware of all the water in your body, realising it’s boiling inside of you. You would want to make everyone see, to find understanding. You’re worthless, but if someone could understand why? Make them fuse with you. Melt your bodies and your souls. Become entirely passive and porous together, no, not together, as one. One with your surroundings, too. You couldn’t call it nature, that high building decaying with all the people in it. But the stickiness of the floor and the annoying warmth of the blanket, the white ceiling and dirty walls, the dusty balcony and the one who plays his violin outside. In another apartment, similar to yours and entirely different, they live, too. They make sounds, even. You wish you could do that. Make people understand, with music; make them feel, with a bow and its strings. Better, you wish you could create an image. A realistic one, with lots of details and correct anatomy. But also, uniquely yours. Your reality.
But you can’t. The only thing you could do is write.
Get up. Slowly, because fast doesn’t have meaning anymore. But get up. Your feet stick to the wooden floor a tiny split second before you can lift them; that’s fine, you’re not in a rush. Hours could pass. You’d be of no use anyway, why make your heart race. Go to the kitchen, and get a small glass, the one you drank with last night. You recognise it, no glass is similar in the house. This one is transparent and smooth, almost round.
So you take it. Put it on the small table. Get the grenadine. You pour it in the glass, slowly, not too much, you don’t want the sugary syrup to hurt your throat when you finally drink it. It would ruin the point of refreshing yourself. There. It’s done. Put the bottle back, get the ice cold water from the fridge. Pour it, too, and watch the two substances mix.
Put the bottle back.
You’re going to take the glass back to your room, but suddenly you stop. You forgot something. It’s okay, though. Go back to the kitchen. No no, don’t rush, don’t skip any of it. It’s slow and boring anyway, now or later. So don’t bother, stay calm, keep being slow. Put the glass on the table, open the fridge. Ice cubes, fish-shaped for a reason you can’t grasp. You put one in the glass, put the ice cubes back, take the glass with you, go back to your room. Some wind is coming through the window. You can see the white curtains slowly moving.
The wind is hot too, actually. Everything is anyway. So you drink, and enjoy the cold feeling while it lasts. Sit at the desk.
Open the computer.
And write.

Now the silence is heavy.