I walked outside a little while ago to get my hair cut. Well, to walk to my car to drive one block to get my hair cut. Had I walked, I don't think I would have fared well. As I opened the door to go outside, I felt the hot air stinging my already dry skin, the feeling I associate with the 20th minute of being in the sun, when I usually realize, "Wow, I'm getting some sun!" Well, here, I was not yet in the sun and I felt it. It's like opening a pre-heated oven and feeling the hot air as you put a casserole onto the rack. Only, in Phoenix, you step into the oven.
On my way to the parking deck, I have a shortcut that saves me about 8 feet of walking. It takes me over a small strip of baked earth, in full desert glory (unlike many of the lush, green lawns that require nightly pools of water - literally - they flood fields at night to water them), complete with a dry bone. Albeit a chicken wing bone, the little thing just seems to fit. Desert, baking sun, cracked ground, and a little dried and bleached bone. I picture I would look something like that had I walked to Supercuts. A skeleton laid out, reaching towards the nearest visible fast food restaurant - or was it a mirage? - wearing cargo shorts, a collared shirt, and still needing a haircut. "Poor guy," passersby would say in a sympathetic tone, "probably an out of towner."
"Bet he's from the South," another would say, "he just isn't used to the heat."
"But it's a dry heat," the another would retort.
"Yeah!" another would reply.
And they would all decide, as they all do, that 114 is not actually all that hot. "It's a dry heat!" they would all exclaim, smile, and then carry on with their days. Inevitably, one of them would not last the rest of the way down the block, and the above conversation would repeat.
1 comment:
So James, are you telling us that there are dead people on the streets of Phoenix? ...sick
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