The First Day of Summer

Oh, where to begin, where to begin? It was a balmy summer night, one that had followed an exceedingly hot day. Not that the days before this one weren't exceedingly hot, but this day was epic. It was the first day of Summer, and it wasn't enough that the season had already began to show about a week before; today was scorchingly hot, as if to further rub into our faces that the bad could always get worse. This was the day I discovered the godsend of a damp washcloth. Despite much swimming done earlier that day, I sweltered and melted in the stifling heat. Any coolness was mild and disappointingly brief. The night, though cooler, was barely less relentless. A small circle of friends convened, and night swimming was agreed to be in order. I had to scramble home to fetch my bathing suit again.

For a time, things were okay as the Junebug infested pool water cooled our burning skins and left us speechless as we floated like life buoys waiting for liquor to arrive. I floated alone, out of the loop of boring conversation about topics and people I didn't know about, a billion different thoughts flowing into and occupying my mind. I began to quickly see the lack of prospects for the night. Everyone else was content to babble on about some mindless subject, Corona Lite in hand, but I couldn't have been farther away from it all. The kind of depression you contract from an initially exciting-sounding night gone flat all too quickly is definitely one of the worst. Eventually the pool lost its interest, and the amount of people leaving the water correlated with the amount of liquor consumed. I sat on the edge of the pool wrapped in a towel like an Indian squaw, dipping my feet into the lukewarm water. Was it my imagination, or was there something watching me?

There was indeed. I was embarassed and anxious. It felt like nothing would ever make things right again. Sitting apart on a dusty old lawnchair, he left presently. He invited me to leave with him, slightly coyly, but I remained resolute. But the night dragged on depressingly. I couldn't stand watching everyone drone on and on, as thought their lives were so mundane and devoid of purpose. I looked up into the night and wondered where the love of my life was.

He text messaged me and I crept out of the house silently. We met down the street on some old steps. How I loved those steps! They looked out onto the cul-de-sac with a beautiful skyline consisting of old ratty houses and telephone lines criss-crossed with palm trees. It was awkward at first, but we managed to talk at last. He mentioned the new friends he had made, the open-mic nights, the weird indie-goth kids who wouldn't drink beer, but instead nurse a personal bottle of wine throughout the night. How he was going to a friend's tomorrow to learn how to record on a 4-track. Eventually the topic shifted to philosophy, and I yawned inwardly at his valiant but rather pretentious pursuit of lofty concepts. Ugh, how I hated those self righteous soliloquies, as if he were the only one in the world who could think beyond anyone else, and that he was a martyr for it. Only Schopenhauer's paradoxical claim that anyone who reads anything and takes it for fact without interpreting and developing their own ideas is a thief piqued my interest near the end.

Faint strains of chords being strummed on an acoustic guitar could be heard. Above, a street lamp tangled with a telephone pole bathed everything in a faded orange glow when it wasn't flickering. My ass hurt from sitting on the concrete steps dappled with dirt and mottled with indentations like the pocked skin of a middle aged man who survived an adolescence full of acne. The hardness reminded me of the decrepit metal folding chair I was using at my desk at my parent's house for the summer, and that I had been using for the past week since my return home. We turned our heads up the street in the direction of the main thoroughfair of our little town when the headlights of cars would flash into the far right tails of our eyes.

I asked about his future. He smiled weakly and outlined his plans for school and work. I was only half listening-- I'm not sure if I had asked out of curiousity or politeness. Neither of us could beat around the bush. He asked about the other. And I told him about the other. But I didn't have much to say that I felt would be relevant outside of my life 94 miles north, similar to the way Kantian paradigms can never be compared to each other even if they may contain many of the same components as another.

I wanted to come home and write this all down, so we bid good night to each other, and I walked back up the street, into the orange spotlight of the street lamp, and then into the dark abyss that shrouded the northern part of the road. I stopped in at my friend's house to grab my things-- still, was there something watching? Again, probably my over active imagination. Or was it a secret regret and sorrow that I sensed, flashing ever so briefly before relapsing again into the banal banter of the crowd on that balmy summer night?