Our bodies burn in summer heat.
I watch hazily as Giorgia twists each arm in slow, careful examination, skin painfully red and blistered. Her words are sharp, tight. It’s bad, she says. Hospital?
I pause. Consider. It’s no good, I decide. My clothes are already sticking to me uncomfortably and moving’s an effort – thinking’s an effort, and I don’t want the bother of a hospital trip on the hottest day of the year so far.
You’re fine, I say. Come inside… drink… keep cool…
I can’t, she reminds me.
Right, I say, eyes closing.
It’s hot.
Drink.
None.
I can half see her: coarse countenance of face and figure. Can half hear her say, “This is serious,” in that hard, hollow tone of hers, but my body is awkward and numb and I’m in no mood to listen. I consider moving, but the marble floor provides some relief, so I stay put.
The air stills and melts like candle wax. I become acutely aware of the growing band of pressure wrapped around my lungs and my breathing becomes shallow and laboured.
I’m too hot! She wails in agony. You never listen and I’m suffering and–! My mind drifts. There’s a real bite to her tone – it’s low, guttural; pure animal – her.
My lip curls back in irritation. I know! You’re too hot – I’m too hot! What you want me to do, huh?
This isn’t about you! You’re too hot because I’m too hot.
I know! I wheeze, gasping between words. I try again – steel and tone. I know.
Help me! Please, help me!
Can’t, I say. None want to, not the right people anyway.
Ridiculous! She screeches. None of you are trying!
She’s right, she is sick, I’ve seen her arms – that awful bubbled skin. I don’t want to consider her – she frightens me – but as her skin pulls back and cracks, revealing the rotten vines and dirt, the sick, ugly twisted wing of it, there settles in this slip, a descent, and a feeling that jars into sudden pressure.
My head swims sluggishly between memories. ThingsI bought, clothes I didn’t need. The litter I didn’t pick up. The flights to nearby countries to see friends, cardboard and paper at the bottom of the bin, unrecycled. All the little things add up, that blight, decay. It takes a long time to undo.
I come around when the sun is a smudge of orange and gold in the sky. I turn to her. There’s something unending and unending. It’s not soft, she’s old, tired and used.
There’s something on the tip of my tongue that burns like confession, but it’s fat in my mouth and parched and torrid. All I can think is that I need to do better.
