thoughts of a hot day

I am not of the heat, but within it.

I am, in fact, Ra.

To dip in the oily rag like waters of St Kilda and feel the slime of its sand nestling around, not between, my toes. Refreshing.

Is that the cool ripple of air conditioned condensation playing across my brow? Or doth my own sweat create its own fearsomely duplicitous mirage?

There are only so many layers to remove before we reach the skin and I would like to strip down past my skin and be truly naked, truly exposed, and perhaps truly cool.

All the grandparents are on park benches wearing slacks and their insides are becoming medium to medium-well and sweat nestles gently in the folds of their wrinkled skin, granules of perspiration promising a coolness not to come.

Alas, it is all now a cruel mirage. A promise of respite, but just another hot gust of wind.

Thoughts tentatively reach for the beach, but are accosted by men in speedos complaining of the temperature of the sand turning their feet to stone as lava does.           

Now for the fever dream: the same nightmare hallucination of Tony Abott and Andrew Bolt engaged in tender coitus, whispering of the global warming fake news, more coal they add to the fire they lay before, turning orange and white, in a bed of toupees. And, here, I am left stricken by these beacons of paleness invading my flash fried thoughts.

I cannot flee the inferno. I cannot flee the inferno’s infernal thoughts playing at the margins of my dwindling sanity. 

I am a sloth in a tree in a great fire.

Is that now Trump who joins the fray? Or some magnificent golden being whose court I must attend? Do we all talk to the sun at Fire Island?

I am, in fact, merely a servant of Ra. Hardly an Aztec. A slave whose heart placates confused gods who breath fire.

I am a Prophet of the Cool Change and I will write its prophecy as soon as I rebuild myself, as Alex Mac, would from the pool of warm salty water I have become.

We are now a living 42 degree day with the strong chance of bush fires and a total fire ban.

I am made of boiling water meant for pasta.