The severe heat

It was been so hot here I just got so sleepy and I slept for about 90 minutes around midday today. The temperature is indescribable. You get up in the morning early, say around 7am or 7.30am, and the temperature is already in the 30s Celsius, with the humidity in the high 60 percent range, and it is just insupportable (as the French say). This state of affairs endures throughout the entire day, so even at 12pm or 2pm it is a matter of getting up from your chair every five or ten minutes and wiping with a towel the sweat off your upper body: arms, face, torso, shoulders, neck and head.

As you sit at your desk you end up simply covered in rivulets of sweat, and the heat makes you tired and sluggish. You almost cannot move it is so hot and humid.

Today I have for the first time in months picked up a book and read a little bit. This exposure to literature makes me hungry. I feel as though I should be writing poetry again. But I have to go down to bring in the laundry I hung out in the morning. The day swallows me up like a cat devours a plate of chicken hearts, entire. I struggle to do the simplest thing because of the heat.

While bringing down the laundry I start to compose a poem in my head. I start to collect rhymes. They multiply and breed in my head like a virus. But they will not live on the page. When I get back inside I put down the laundry and pick up a beer. I sit down in front of the computer and enmesh my attention with the output coming from social media. I engage with the world through this jerky, confusing and surprising interface.

The heat will continue through the afternoon and into the evening. Even with night there will be no relief. I will go to sleep again tonight with the air conditioning running. With air conditioning when I wake in the morning the room has a specific smell. It reminds me of lunacy and madness. But when you open the louvers in the morning the creature of 33 degrees Celsius races into the room like a flock of ducks. You cannot escape the heat. It is there waiting for you whichever room you walk into. You are trapped by climate change. It is inexorable. It is there waiting for you like a reminder of futurity. This is just going to get worse every year. Thank log I am doing the big move south back to the temperate climes of Sydney.