Hot brain thoughts

There’s something rotten in my hot brain, something deeply ungrateful.

It seems like everyone in Barry is sick. I’m exaggerating of course. But everyone in my Barry is sick. Brian is deeply unwell; hot, sicky, feverish, in a way I’ve never seen in our near decade together. The same sickness seems to have caught Gosia, which makes me feel I am entirely to blame, because I cannot resist making myself the centre of the universe. I remain unafflicted, if not exactly “well”. I carry the same level of aches, sweats, mucus and fatigue as any woman living through the current age.

I sit upstairs in the book room so Brian can make the most of the relative cool in the lounge, I gaze through the window at the seagulls that have made a home out of a chimney stack across the way. Last week, there were three babies; this week, there is only one. I tell my boss I’m worried, the others were too small to fly. She advises me to stop thinking about it, and not to go looking either. “If the worst has happened, you don’t want to know.”

The air is thick inside, almost chewy. I don’t know about outside because I haven’t been. I drag myself through the week, fantasising about lottery wins, or, in the absence of independent wealth, catapulting myself off the planet. My joints swell from the act of sitting hunched over my desk for five hours straight. The cats don’t complain about the heat, have no problem heaving their huge, furry bodies onto mine whilst I stare into the glowing rectangle, weather the onslaught of Teams calls and try not to jump every time one of the cats knocks something down. Everyone I encounter is consistent in their observations.

it’s not the heat that gets you it’s the humidity, 34 degrees here is different to 34 degrees abroad. it’s not the heat that gets you it’s the humidity, 34 degrees here is different to 34 degrees abroad. it’s not the heat that gets you it’s the humidity, 34 degrees here is different to 34 degrees abroad. it’s not the heat that gets you it’s the humidity, 34 degrees here is different to 34 degrees abroad. it’s not the heat that gets you it’s the humidity, 34 degrees here is different to 34 degrees abroad. It’s not the....

Next week it’ll rain. 27 people will tell me that “we needed it”.

Ricky cascades books to the floor, Donnie makes a home of my neck. I squint into the camera, setting my face to serious.

I make lists, set goals. I send my little emails and wait for their little email friends to come back. Gosia sends me a meme. I hope this email kills us both. I promise myself next week will be better, more focused, more... literary.

Brian asks me about our plans for July, we make the ceremonial journey to the wall planner, unable to organise ourselves unless we’re staring at a physical thing. Digital calendars cannot do for you what a sheet of paper blu-tacked to the wall can. Focus. He looks at my schedule in relative horror. “You are too busy,” he says. “That is mental.”

There’s something rotten in my hot brain, something deeply ungrateful, the heat has melted my gratitude. I tell myself, I want to be busy, I want to work, I want the summer. I want the heat, the light, the baby birds, the clingy cats and the hot journeys on the train to see my friends. I want to sweat. I want to have a story to tell.

I see an Instagram post. “We’re officially past the summer solstice, that means the nights will start drawing in.” Winter will come again, and I will never, ever be grateful for winter.