The Heat is Hotter than Hades

"It was the hottest day of the year." "It was in the center of the city, and it was so hot that the asphalt was peeling back like it was coming apart from the seams."

"Yet it was a scorcher, it was so hot that the devil would have tried to escape to get away from all the many problems that were mounting because it was so damn hot."

"How can you cool down from the heat when you have nowhere to go to cool down?" "What if the heat follows you everywhere you go and you try to hide from it, but it ends up seeing you and, in its anger, becomes hotter than before?"

"During the wintertime you can bundle up and then when you get too hot, you can take off the layers of clothes you piled upon your body and not feel so hot, but when it's the hottest day of the year, you have no choice but to find a way to cool down."

"Is that even possible?" "To find a way to cool down when it's hot anywhere you go." "There are brown outs." "The local power grid, electrical grid does not suffice." "If you are lucky enough to get some relief from the heat and suffering, standing in line waiting to find that split second of relief, before you are ushered back out into the heat that is more unbearable and intolerable."

"It makes your clothes stick to your skin and to your body like they are held on by Elmer's glue." "You pull at your clothes like you are being strangled by the heat and the sun smile devilish as it knows you are miserable, to say the least."

"You seek out many forms of cooler spaces, some large and some more confined, even though you are claustrophobic and scared to death of small spaces." "You run around like a mad person, with your mind focused on one thing, to escape this maddening moment of the hottest day of the year."

"No one can find you relief." "No one can ease your pain and suffering and grief." "No one is able to read your mind on how you will do this or do that, including selling your very soul to the devil to make this helpless hopeless heat go away."

"You beg." "You plead." "You are weary of this matter that is part of much bigger plan to make you look bad." "Eyes darting back and forth, looking for a vacant spot to go into." "You feel the cops are watching you and are ready to pounce onto you when you get out of hand, just because the heat has made you paranoid, along with beginning to hallucinate that there is a mirage of relief in the middle of the street you are walking down."

"Your laughter turns to tears, your thoughts rushing around in your mind, as you begin to feel less relieved and more panicky." "How do you find a sane way to get this heat behind you, only to realize that if the heat is behind you, then you will be hot on your back instead of your face and front."

You paw at the air that is hot with steam and the air thick with a humidity that is stagnant and dry." "You dream of drinking water, but this heat on the hottest day of the year will only turn water into dust."

"You mind is filled with emptiness and your eyes are blurred." "You want to believe that you will see straight enough to make it home." "Due to the temporary block on your vision, you feel like a blind person who has to trust others to lead them in the right direction."

"You are at first joined by maybe only 3 or 4 people, then its ten people, then it turns into a hundred or so, then its more people than you can keep counting, as the number grows and grows." "These people, all these people, are looking for the same thing you are looking for, and they think you have the answer to their problem, which is the same problem you have, beating the hottest day of the year."

"Is there no one who can find a way to save one and all from this horrific moment and offer a way to become no longer the former but more like the present one who is given a way to divert the heat and become cooler?"

"You look in all directions, hoping to find some way to get away from all these additions to what was earlier only you." "You are beginning to become mad and exhausted, allowing you to lash out and swing in one and all directions, hitting some who are closest to where you are."

"Then you hear loud sirens, then the uniforms appear, then you are thrown to the ground while having your arms put behind your back and the feel of cold steel placed on your wrists." You cry at metal touching your skin, allowing your mind to race back to the moments when the heat as less a mess and more of a single digit circumstance."

"You are raised above the ground and dragged limply towards the open doors of the squad car, ready to receive you and swallow you whole." The air conditioner is blasting and blowing cool air into your face that shows both relief and being content, you are breathing a prayer, under your breath."

"You are ready to be driven away, with one of the police officers sitting in back with you." "You are not sure what happened before." "You sit upright and lean into the back seat, and you settle in for a long but more comfortable ride, only to be aroused awake as though you had dozed off enroute."

"You are ready to become acceptable to the consequences may be for your actions, then as they remove you from the vehicle, the blast of heat hits you square in the face and reminds you that the relief was only short-lived."

"You are rushed to the now waiting open door leading into the jail, brought before a magistrate to be read the charges and then be placed in a waiting cell or whatever they decide to do with you."

"As you are standing before the magistrate, they decide with a grin, that you will be placed once more outside, in the dry humid heat, as your form of punishment."

"You collapse at the sound of laugher and of those who are smiling and teasing you, as the police officers then turn you around to exit out the same door you only recently entered in through."

"They do not walk you out, they pick you up, after removing the handcuffs, proceed to throw you back out into the heat and the hottest day of the year is the new way to make sure you either find a way to live and survive or you die trying to beat the heat and possibly cease to exist as one less human being is what they used to call you before you left."