The Last Fan Standing

At 8:12 a.m., Daniel announced that the heat was perfectly manageable.

This was important because nobody had asked.

He stood in the kitchen wearing shorts and holding a cup of coffee while the thermometer outside the window displayed 29°C.

"It's summer," he said. "People have become too dependent on air-conditioning."

His wife, Claire, looked at him over her glass of water.

"You'll be saying something different this afternoon."

Daniel smiled.

This was the smile of a man who had not yet met the afternoon.

By ten o'clock, the temperature had reached thirty-three degrees.

Daniel closed all the shutters.

"Basic thermodynamics."

At eleven, he opened them again because the house had become dark, hot, and strangely reminiscent of a tomb.

"Ventilation."

Claire said nothing.

She had decided that silence would provide better entertainment.

At 11:17, Daniel brought the electric fan from the bedroom into the living room.

This did not count as surrender.

"A fan doesn't cool the air," he explained. "It merely increases evaporation from the skin."

He positioned himself directly in front of it.

Claire walked past.

"Enjoy your evaporation."

At noon, the fan began making a clicking noise.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Daniel examined it.

Click.

"It needs cleaning."

Click.

He unplugged it, removed the grille, cleaned the blades, reassembled everything, and switched it on.

Click-click-click-click.

"It's worse," Claire observed.

"I know."

Daniel removed the grille again.

Twenty minutes later, the fan no longer clicked.

It no longer rotated either.

Daniel stared at it.

Claire opened the refrigerator and stood in front of it.

"Don't do that," Daniel said. "You're heating the kitchen."

She continued standing there.

At one o'clock, lunch was cancelled because the idea of operating an oven had become morally offensive.

They ate tomatoes.

Daniel put his plate in the freezer for five minutes before serving himself.

Claire noticed.

"Thermodynamics?"

"Absolutely."

Outside, the garden had stopped moving.

No birds.

No insects.

Even the trees appeared to have withdrawn their participation.

Thirty-six degrees.

Daniel filled a spray bottle with water.

"This is actually very efficient."

He sprayed his face.

Then his arms.

Then his legs.

Ten minutes later he was sitting in his underwear spraying himself every thirty seconds like a supermarket vegetable display.

Claire took a photograph.

"Delete that."

"Never."

At two thirty, Daniel remembered the inflatable paddling pool in the garage.

They had bought it years earlier for visiting grandchildren.

"It's ridiculous," Claire said.

"Completely."

Twenty minutes later, Daniel was inflating it.

The electric pump overheated halfway through.

Daniel finished with his mouth.

At thirty-seven degrees.

When the pool was finally inflated, he dragged the garden hose across the lawn.

The water that emerged had been sitting inside the hose under the sun.

Daniel pointed it toward his legs.

He screamed.

Claire applauded from the doorway.

After running the hose for several minutes, the water became tolerably cool.

Daniel filled the pool.

It took forty minutes.

He lowered himself into it with the solemnity of a man entering a Scandinavian spa.

The water reached approximately halfway up his stomach.

"This," he announced, "is civilization."

Claire brought him a glass of iced water.

For eleven glorious minutes, Daniel believed he had defeated summer.

Then the neighbor's cat arrived.

The cat examined Daniel.

Daniel examined the cat.

"Don't."

The cat approached the pool.

"Don't even think about it."

The cat placed one paw against the inflatable wall.

"Claire."

One claw was sufficient.

The sound was surprisingly delicate.

Pffffffffff.

Daniel watched civilization collapse around him.

Water spread across the lawn.

The cat departed without urgency.

At four o'clock, the thermometer showed thirty-eight degrees.

Nobody mentioned air-conditioning.

This was because mentioning air-conditioning would have required admitting that Daniel's speech at breakfast had occurred.

Instead, he searched the internet for "emergency cooling techniques."

He froze two bottles of water and placed them behind the repaired-but-nonfunctional fan.

Nothing happened.

He put a wet towel around his neck.

Better.

He put another over his head.

Better still.

Claire entered the room and found her husband sitting in his underwear beneath two wet towels, holding a spray bottle and staring at a dead fan.

"You look like a hostage."

"I'm comfortable."

"You look extremely comfortable."

At five fifteen, Daniel went to the supermarket.

Not because they needed groceries.

The supermarket had air-conditioning.

He spent forty-five minutes comparing yogurts.

Then twenty minutes examining frozen peas.

He had never before appreciated frozen peas as a concept.

An employee eventually asked whether he needed assistance.

"I'm considering my options."

"Between peas?"

"It's complicated."

Daniel bought one bag.

He drove home with it resting against his chest.

Claire watched him enter.

"Are we having peas?"

"No."

He placed the bag behind his neck.

She nodded.

"Of course."

At six thirty, clouds appeared.

Daniel walked outside.

The temperature had fallen to thirty-six degrees, which now felt almost refreshing.

"There might be a storm."

There was no storm.

The clouds disappeared.

Daniel took this personally.

At seven, he surrendered.

"I'm ordering an air-conditioner."

Claire looked up.

"I thought people had become too dependent on air-conditioning."

"They have."

"And?"

"I intend to become one of them."

He found a portable unit online.

Delivery: three days.

Daniel stared at the screen.

"Three days?"

Claire smiled.

"Basic thermodynamics."

That night, they moved two mattresses onto the tiled kitchen floor because it was marginally cooler there.

The windows were open.

The shutters were half closed.

Wet towels hung from chairs.

Frozen bottles occupied strategic positions around the room.

The dead fan stood in the corner.

At 1:43 a.m., Daniel whispered into the darkness.

"Are you awake?"

"Yes."

"I'm hot."

"I know."

A pause.

"Do you think the supermarket is still open?"

"No."

Another pause.

"Petrol station?"

"Daniel."

"Right."

At 2:16, something extraordinary happened.

A breeze entered through the window.

It was faint.

Barely perceptible.

But unmistakably cool.

Daniel lifted his head.

"Claire."

"I feel it."

Neither moved.

They were afraid movement might frighten it away.

The curtain stirred.

Cool air crossed the kitchen floor.

Daniel closed his eyes.

For perhaps thirty seconds, everything was perfect.

Then the electricity went out.

The refrigerator stopped.

The freezer stopped.

Somewhere inside it, Daniel's remaining bottles of ice began their slow return to water.

He opened his eyes.

Claire began laughing.

Not politely.

Not quietly.

She laughed until tears ran down her face.

Daniel listened in the darkness.

Then he began laughing too.

Outside, the temperature remained thirty-one degrees.

Inside, two adults lay on a kitchen floor surrounded by wet towels, melting ice, a broken fan, and one increasingly soft bag of frozen peas.

Daniel wiped his forehead.

"Still manageable," he said.

Claire threw a pillow at him.