Hot In The City
It was so hot that the Earth was melting into a silent echo of itself.
Dull, giant bass-line hums of heat emanated off the pavement in waves.
Sticky black asphalt streaks heated the soles of my shoes.
The footprints of pedestrians passed below me, their tell-tale heels embedded into the street like tattoos. How far ahead were they? Did they make it to where they wanted to go? Of did the cracks in the pavement claim them for their own?
I reached a set of traffic lights on the corner of Sahara Crescent and Camel Boulevard. My mind blurred into a giddy parody of itself. I started laughing for no reason as I imagined a Mini Me disappearing into a curious blob of goo like a chocolate bar in a microwave. The lights said “Stop”.
The soulless intersection glared hot and red at me and said: “It’s Your Fault.” I sweated some more. “This is no man’s land,” the Sun said. I thought: “what are you doing out in this heat? What are you doing with your life? Why did you elect to buy sandwiches for your work colleagues in the middle of such a hot summer’s day?”
MY office seemed miles away as I contemplated the naked answers to my questions.
The electricity poles offered no shade. So I moved near a post box in order to position my head in the shadow created by one of the traffic lights. A rectangular box of solace shielded my eyes from the sun’s rays and I felt like I was cheating death. This was a time for desperate measures. The Sun had a strategy and I had outdone her for a moment. Touché as I played clever backgammon moves with my body. Buy yourself time, I thought. I looked up and there was an old lady leaning out of her window in a dressing gown. Her face was locked in a burning asphalt footprint of sympathy. I blinked and she was gone.
A moment later I was joined by a young couple with their suitcases and backpacks. They stopped at the traffic lights too. They seemed bubbly and excited. I wondered if they were carrying everything that they owned. Was this a joke? They were tiny. Their baggage was enormous. There was so much, in fact, that it made me want to invent a collective noun just to define the huge bundle of bags that they were transporting with them. A nest of suitcases? A soliloquy of backpacks? They brought to mind documentaries about ants and how they can carry many times their bodyweights. They were pale and dresses in multiple layers of high-tech fabric. What planet were they from?
“Do you mind if we stand in your shadow?” asked Mr. and Mrs. Ant in unison.
“I’m not that big,” I replied.
“Yes, but you’re bigger than us,” they replied.
It’s difficult to argue with people who make sense.
So I complied.
“Knock yourselves out,” I said.
They stood with their baggage and sighed and weighted.
A dry leaf scratched by in the gutter with the flow of wind from a passing car and stopped beside us.
“It’s a sign!” Mr. Ant said to Mrs. Ant, smiling, while fanning themselves with guide books in my shadow.
I felt the faintest waft of breeze from their efforts. It was like a distant hint of love around the corner. A fair exchange of simple services in difficult circumstances. Somehow it all made sense and I smiled to myself.
The light changed to green. We go.
I bought sandwiches and soft drinks for my team and headed back to work thinking that we are all on the move. And sometimes we stop. But, when we go we all go to where we need to go. It’s made me look at bees and ant hills with a brand new perspective.
