The heat comes not as fire, but as a hush—a suffocating stillness that settles over rooftops, seeps into concrete, and hums inside your bones. It is not the sun you fear, but its relentless gaze, unmoving and ancient, casting light that feels more like pressure than warmth. A heat wave is not just weather—it is an occupation of space, a quiet siege.
Time distorts under heat. The clocks grow heavy and slow. Trees droop in silent protest. Metal shimmers and bends the air above it. It is as though the world has slipped into a slow, simmering dream, one where breath becomes deliberate and shade becomes sacred.
Survival, in such moments, is a choreography.
To remain cool is to engage in ritual: You draw the curtains, not to darken the room, but to repel an invisible tide. You sip water not as drink, but as spell—cooling the mouth to soothe the mind. You dress in fabrics that whisper rather than cling, in colors that reflect like denial. You place your body in alignment with fans and breezes like a compass seeking magnetic mercy.
Coolness becomes a pursuit of absence: absence of movement, of heat, of urgency. The refrigerator hums like a monk in meditation. Tiled floors become altars of relief. You find holiness in slowness.
This heat, though, is not only physical—it is a thinning of the veil between discomfort and delirium. Sleep becomes vapor. Thoughts scatter like ash. It is here that resilience is tested, not with strength, but with stillness. One must become amphibious—part shadow, part breath, part waiting.