This text was written as I learn to live with Long Covid and attempt to regain my creativity. All the posts and some more info can be found here.
The air thickens under the pressure of the sun. I lie on the floor and hope for a breeze, a momentary relief from the heat. Nothing comes but a waft of too warm air, roasting me. My head burns. I apply cold wet clothes over my hair and around my neck again and again but they seem useless. They are warm to the touch within seconds. I take another sip of water and wait. The heat will pass. This is only for a few days according to the weather people.
My partner returns home from a holiday in Wales. She brings me back a slice of cake. The icing has melted into the carboard box but the cake has not dried out. I store it in the fridge for breakfast the following day.
At night, we keep the bedroom window wide open to invite as much cooling airflow as possible. Traffic from a nearby road roars endlessly. We stick earplugs in our ears as far as they will go to attempt sleep. The bed sheets are soaked in water. We spread hot water bottle that have been chilled in the fridge for hours between us and feel the aura of coolness around them.
On Friday, we drive to the local arboretum in search of green and shade. Our neighbourhood is all brick houses clustered against one another. Some folks have air conditionning beast sticking out of their window, blowing more hot air back into the world. They are cool. We burn. Mowed and paved gardens store the sun. Our lone green garden is not enough to soak it all up. The bricks of the houses are too hot to touch.
The arboretum is deserted. We settle under the shade of old bark and young leaves. The birds are quiet. The needle that passes through the cotton fabric held taught by an embroidery hoop is all we hear for a while. We retreat to the cafe for cake and earl grey tea. Small pots of thick wax infused with citronella gathers on the tables to chase away the wasps. It takes three on our table for the wasps to leave us alone. Later, in the car, the citronella wax left behind, a wasp flies in the car and zooms into my shirt sleeve. Their dart pierces my skin before I can unbutton the front and carefully slide my sleeve off. They fly away in a second. My skin is bright red and raised in an angry dome.
At home, my partner rubs a soothing cream onto my arm. Tennis plays on the television. The doors and windows are all opened. I watch the thermostat go down 0.1 degree celsius at a time.
We sleep in the relative coolness of the night, slide from the sofa to the floor as the heat increases and our bodies overheat. Tennis plays. The grass courts more brown than green. We watch the thermostat, we refresh the weather app, we rummage the fridge for the last few bis of food we can eat raw. We drink water.
The cold my partner has been carrying for a handful of days rises in me. My throat is filled with the sharp prickle of it, my head is congested, thick and woolly. Everything turns hazy.
Monday comes. I am still unsteady from the cold, prone to sudden meetings with the floor as colours and shapes vanish from my sight, but I am no longer as hot as the air. Clouds have gathered and have brought along with them wind. A burst of rain drenches the garden for a few minutes, slips into the house, slides on my skin and cools off the furnace of the wasp sting on my arm. In France, my family have a day off to celebrate Bastille Day. I remember childhood fireworks and paper fire lanterns carried through the village. My house then was cool, built to whistand the heat. It never hurt to touch. The bricks of this house are still a little warm, the memories of the days of heat stored deep into them, but it is over. The heat has passed and for a little while, the weather will be bearable, pleasant even as long rain showers are due to visit the following day.