It's Getting Hot Out There

When I woke up in my cool bedroom, I had no idea how much I would long for it as the day went on. It was a crisp early-summer morning, lulling me into a false sense of peace before the heat of the day launched its daily assault.

I lay in bed under the industrial fan, enjoying the breeze that had been likened to a jet engine starting up. If only I’d known, I would have just stayed there. But eventually even that cool breeze would be replaced by hot air.

I went to the kitchen for my usual morning glass of cold water to discover that the fridge I’d owned since my student days had finally died an inconvenient death, and I was left with lukewarm water.

I decided to attempt a cool shower, but the water pipes on my old Queensland rental had already soaked up the morning sun, and the water from the cold tap felt hot enough to brew a coffee. Not that I wanted a hot coffee on this stifling morning.

I decided the house had burned me one too many times (almost literally), and thought my day off should be rewarded by a trip to the beach. I grabbed my beach gear, turned on the car and was greeted by the icy blast of my car’s air conditioner. I briefly contemplated skipping the beach, and just chilling in the car all day.

I put the car in reverse, started to inch down the driveway, and the car shuddered to an awful halt, the aircon going with it. I roared in frustration and grabbed my gear. Fixing the car could wait for another day, I just needed to cool off.

The walk to the bus stop was blistering, the heat emanating from the pavement in wavy lines, but the sight of all those modern buses with their cool interiors urged me on. I got to the stop just in time to see my bus pull away.

I waited under the hot tin roof of the bus shelter for what felt like an eternity until the next bus arrived. Unlike the modern buses I had seen, this one looked like it had lost all its money to a Nigerian prince and now had to work long into its retirement. Instead of cool air conditioning, I was greeted by a blast of hot air as the ancient doors creaked open. I sat gingerly on the hot vinyl seats, trying to have as little skin contact with it as possible, lest I risk third-degree burns.

The bus window was open as far as it could go, which was barely the width of my hand, and somehow even hotter air blew in from outside. How could anything be hotter than the inside of this bus?

After another eternity, I saw the sparkling blue ocean loom into view and could almost feel the cool water on my skin. Or maybe that was just the pool of sweat between my legs and the vinyl seat.

Despite the heat, I practically skipped to the beach, the thought of the cool refreshing water buoying me along. I set down my things on the sand. I was surprised that there was so much free space available on such a hot day. I walked towards the inviting water, when a lifeguard waved at me and pointed to a big red and yellow sign.

BEACH CLOSED. SHARK SIGHTING.

No wonder the beach was empty.

I could have cried, but I couldn’t afford to lose the moisture from my body. As I trudged back to the bus stop, I passed a small child holding an ice cream, while his mum tried to stop it dripping all over him.

I decided a cold ice cream was just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, the first shop I came to had sold out, which was unsurprising on a day like today. So had the second.

The third still had ice cream, technically. But a frayed power lead had killed the freezer, leaving it more cream than ice and no longer fit for human consumption.

I decided that my attempt for a cool day out had failed miserably, not due to lack of effort on my part, and that it was time to admit defeat and return home. By a stroke of misfortune, I managed to catch the same cheated-out-of-retirement bus back to my house. I’d never thought about how a rotisserie chicken feels in the oven, but I now felt a newfound sympathy for its plight.

I glanced sadly at my broken-down car, decided it was still too hot to deal with, and returned inside. I gave up on my broken fridge and went back to my fan that had been compared to a small aircraft propeller more than once. I stripped off to my shorts and lay under it, breathing a massive sigh of relief as I felt the closest thing I had to cool air all day.

I closed my eyes and basked in the cool-enough air.

I could hear the rumble of an afternoon summer storm and urged it to break. I didn’t care if it brought Purple Rain, acid rain, or even actual cats and dogs. Anything to cool down this blistering day.

And then the power went out.