The Melting Man
Week 9: Written February 28, 2016
It’s another hot day. 200 degrees. You can feel it through the protective suits, beads of sweat sizzling off your skin like it were a hot plate. They’re difficult to wear, those suits, when the temperature tops 180. Too steamy.
But that doesn’t stop me from going out. It’s a rare day when the sand dunes are empty, when people stay indoors and listen to the radio instead of enjoying the weather. It’s sunny all the time now, clear skies and windless. Unless the temperature is truly unbearable, people are out, people are doing things.
Today is one of those unbearable days.
I stay in on the cold days, the 120–140 degree days, when the dunes are flush with families and the airwaves are full of reruns and commercials. That’s when I catch up on my shows — like The Adventures of Captain Airvent and Dune Divers — and let the rest of the world fight for space in the sand.
I guess I’m weird like that. But I’m not the only one.
I’ve seen her out on days like this, too — through my binoculars — and she’s probably out for the same reasons. She walks slow, savoring every step, and looks around at everything like she’s never seen any of it before. She’s the one in the pink and blue suit with red stickers on it. Roses.
I’ve never seen roses (or ANY flowers) for real, but if the stickers are accurate, they must be beautiful.
We’re always a far distance apart when we see each other. The wastes, the dunes, the barren lakes, they’re all so vast and empty. It’s impossible NOT to see another person there. But every time, she’s too far to reach safely by foot. In 200 degrees, that’s even more true.
Maybe we’ll never find our way to each other, maybe she doesn’t even know I exist. But on these hot days, when even a leisurely stroll feels like an act of courage, I let myself dream. I imagine there’s more to my world than the quarter acre of sand I call home, and that the heat we feel every day can be as figurative as is it real.
The others worry. People have wandered out too far, or too long, and melted. But sometimes, I think it’s okay to melt a little.
