Entry #45

By the time I stepped outside, the leaves were on fire. The humidity hit like the neighborhood ice cream truck, the tires of which melted onto the hot asphalt even in the shade. The heat haze drifted my vision elsewhere, a near psychedelic quality to the ever changing waves in the skyline. I could barely make out what was in the distance due to the size of the sun, just barely kissing the Earth enough to make most men squeal. 

That squeal is not a pleasant sound; it’s tinny and high-pitched, something less than masculine so many chose not to scream when their bodies burned. I guess there’s an irony to that, a silent flame burning a loud soul maybe? I’m not meant for philosophy, but I do try from time to time to sound poetic. Not for anyone else’s sake but my own, the last thing I saw draw breath was the flock of seagulls yesterday morning, fleeing from the partially evaporated ocean. 

I stop my musings about the current world and try to walk over the stovetop sidewalk, the flesh on my feet boiling with each quick step leading into the grass. What remained of the foliage was burnt like the leaves, a subtle yellow-brown tint covering everything not charred by the rays. The soil felt as hard as the sidewalk, but instead of intense heat, it leaned more toward a sandy-quality. I chuckled to myself about the gulls again, and how we didn’t even need a beach when we can make sandcastles in our front yards. 

Or soil castles. Or not. I should focus. 

The sound of an electronic door tumbling open like a bank vault signals me to the home right of mine. I hadn’t anticipated other than a select few weirdos like myself for anyone to leave their homes, the cooling vents chilling their deep-seeded bunkers seemed almost too good to avert your eyes from. The thing that surprised me the most was that it wasn’t the patriarch of the household bravely starting his journey to find supplies in this simulation of hell, or a single mother trying to find what remaining child she has on this burning ball. Oh no, it was something else, something far more interesting: it was a nine year old boy holding a garbage bag. 

His clothes were slightly ripped, the assumption I had at the time was that his mother tried making things “cooler” for him. Whether he actually felt a welcome chill from the makeshift tank top or not was beyond me, but I felt for the kid and his embarrassing wardrobe. He was red around the eyes, rings from either insomnia which was less likely to me, or the more obvious candidate in sorrow. That led my eyes toward the particular bag he was holding, more particularly dragging it out of the home and sniffling as he did so. I kept watch, distracted myself from the pain of being alive in this heat, focusing in on the mysterious contents of the black bag. I wondered if it was simply trash or something more sinister, though from the look of the child, it was clear there was no murderous intent. 

The boy attempted to toss the bag off the staircase, tripped slightly on the first step, and scraped his knee on the pavement. His squeal was as loud as every other man, only this time it was audible. As the young boy pierced my eardrums with his screams, I tried to cover my ears with the palms of my hands. That was a mistake, putting burning flesh on burning flesh, but for a moment I felt some kind of relief. From the vaulted door, what I could only assume was his mother exits into the daylight. She hisses like a creature of the night, then tries to grasp the boy’s wrist as they both yell in agony. I considered returning to my home for a moment, but curiosity gets the better of me all too often. 

As the boy is dragged inside, the blood on his knee turning copper from the sun, I stare at the barely tossed bag on their patio. The door shut with a thud and tumble, and my curiosity continued to grow. Looking to both sides purely out of habit instead of worry, I tried to force myself onto my feet. I took a few slow breaths, savoring what little chill the air has in my lungs, and attempted to make my way across. I miss cold air sometimes, real cold air. Not the imagined cold that I dreamt of since winter ended, but the cold that’s real, you know? The cold that sticks on your skin like dried glue, the subtle scent of mint even though mint doesn’t grow in the snow. 

Ah, yeah, digressing again. Whenever I write in this journal it always leads to some kind of distraction, but that’s besides the point. 

Hopping on my toes from lawn to lawn, I reached the garbage bag gleefully and ill-equipped to carry it away. The touch of the black bag burnt my hand more than your usual stovetop, so I recoiled in pain before checking for burns. Like the kid’s knee, I too boiled like your typical chicken broth, the scent of my burnt flesh hung in my nose like a bad fart. I tried spitting on the wound, but as the saliva left my mouth, it simply floated and faded into the ether. I decided enough’s enough and opened the bag, teeth tight together to fight the pain.

 The fur had been charred off in an unnatural way, the body shrivelled like your fingers after a day in the pool. They didn’t try closing its eyes, the more exposed to the open air it was, the more it began to melt away. I closed the bag and once again made a leap to my lawn, laying back and staring at the inferno burning me alive. I looked to the burning leaves again, melancholy overtaking me. 

I keep this journal to prevent these painful emotions from fully possessing my mind, but seeing what I had yesterday kind of changed things. And trust me, it wasn’t for the better.