humour // no. 22 theotherpress.ca Summer gothic > It’s hot... too hot Rebecca Peterson Humour Editor ou wake up and youre sweating. You're already sweating. This is because you foolishly pulled a single bedsheet over yourself at 4 a.m. when it finally started to cool off a little, the unrelenting heat abating in the long absence of the sun. This has created an oven in which you are slow-roasting to death. You throw the sheet aside. Your first cold shower of the day feels like heaven, but you cannot stay in there forever. Nor can you crawl into your refrigerator and beg for the mercy of the gods. There are no gods. There is only the heat. Do you bother putting on makeup? You're going to sweat it all off anyway. You slap on some long-wear waterproof never-come-off-until-you’re-dead-and- maybe-not-even-then eyeliner and hope for the best. After all, you're already living the worst. You step outside for 30 seconds to collect the mail. You come back inside to find that you're already burned. Not even the SPF gooo sunscreen you smeared all over yourself before braving the outdoors could save you. You dunk your face into a bowl of aloe gel and weep in gooey agony. There are places you need to go today and people you need to see, so you pull on last year’s shorts that no longer fit and a t-shirt that hides sweat stains but sticks to you like something very unpleasantly sticky. You try not to cry—you can’t afford the loss of water. Already you are dehydrated, and you drank three liters of water this morning. Public transit is an assault on the senses—uneven air conditioning, sun magnified through dirty windows, the incredible scent of 50 overheated humans packed into a mobile oven. You check at least five times to make sure it isn’t your deodorant that’s clearly giving out, just to be sure. You meet your friend at a crowded coffee shop, refugees from the heat, packed in like sardines and raising the temperature of the interior by the bulk of humanity within. The air conditioner is blasting with all its might. You can hear its mechanics whirring away, on the brink of giving up. Carry on, brave soldier, your patrons need you... You get your cold, overpriced drinks and look for a seat in the refuge of the shop. Predictably, there are none. “Let’s go outside,” says your friend. “It’s a gorgeous day out there!” The heat has clearly gone to her brain. A little scared, now, you warily follow her. Back outside in the hellish gaze of the sun, the paltry shade provided by the umbrella over the table is hardly strong enough to combat the intense pain and anguish. The seat is hot. Your thighs are stuck together like glue, and are slowly but surely sticking to the chair beneath you as well. Your drink is already half-melted. You are already half-melted. “I just love summer,” says your fallen ally, her eyes hazy as she gazes out over the bright and terrible dystopia around you. “Don’t you?” You sip your melted drink, a drop of sweat cascading over your cheek like a single tear. “Yeah,” you lie, hearing the faint sizzling of your own flesh in the heat. “Yeah, of course. Who doesn’t love summer?” photo by Analyn Cuarto The ‘somewhere’ where it’s 5 o'clock > The place you've been referring to all this time Chandler Walter Assistant Editor €€ 7 t’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” James Holden said, toasting his friends and taking a swig of his beer at exactly 3:27 p.m. Dimensions away, Adams sat at a nearly identical bar, and groaned. The gigantic minute hand of the clock struck backwards to exactly 5 p.m. “Bottoms up,” the innkeeper said, with a frown on his face and a sad look in his eye. Adam took another swig of his beer, which had been refilling endlessly for as long as he could remember. “Why must they do this to us?” he asked aloud, though whether it was a question for the barkeep or for himself, even he did not know. “Why must they torture us so?” Everyone in the room had their eyes glued to the clock. Each drink- free minute to tick by was cause for celebration, every 10 minutes booze- free, a rare occasion. Some of Adams’ friends slumped down onto the bar, hoping to catch a few minute’s rest before they were put back to work. “Well, it’s five o’clock somewhere right!” Brandon McSanders laughed to his friends as they cracked a cold one at 1:29 p.m. In Adam’s world, the creaking of the clock awoke anyone who had been dozing, and like magic, their drinks were filled once more. “No, you know what? I’m sick of this,” Adams’ friend Miller said as Adams dutifully finished off his pint. Miller had always had a weaker stomach, and was one of the more frequent visitors to the washroom. “Why do we have to drink every time someone a dimension away says that stupid phrase? Could you imagine the world that we could have, the lives that we could live, if we didn’t have to abide by such a ridiculous rule? Why us, anyway?” “Just finish your beer and be quiet,” Adams tried to warn his friend. “You're just drunk.” “We're always drunk! Day and night, even though we are not even afforded the luxury of it being any time other than 5 p.m. What kind of a life is this?” “It’s 5 o’clock somewhere,” ol’ Jim Hartner whispered to no one in €¢ Your drink is already half-melted. You are already half-melted. particular, looking down at his mug and taking a solitary sip at 2:32 p.m. The clock sprang back once more. For Miller it was simply the last straw. He smashed his glass down onto the bar, beer and broken glass flying everywhere. “What the hell?” Jim Hartner heard the bartender say, and looking up he saw that none of the beer taps were working. “The fuck?” Brandon McSanders exclaimed, his half full can of beer suddenly empty. “Guys, where’s the beer?” James Holden knew he had left a sixer in the cooler, but it there was only half-melted ice left. “Miller, you need to drink your beer,” Adams said, standing to his shaky feet. “It’s what we do.” The lights seemed darker. The second hand no longer moved on the clock. Others got to their feet, putting down the beer glasses that had long been like shackles to their hands. Flashing lights shone through the bar’s grimy windows, and moments later the old wooden door had been kicked down. “Miller Lite, you are under arrest,” a commanding voice boomed from the doorway. The party police had arrived, and they had their guns drawn. “We will give you until the count of 10,” the same officer said. Miller gave Adams a pleading look, and for the first time in Samuel Adams’ drunken haze of a life, he felt hope. “Tt’s five o’clock somewhere,” Adams said defiantly, sliding a beer across the bar towards where the officer was standing. Like clockwork, the officer grabbed the beer and began chugging it alongside the rest of the crowd. “Go!” Adams shouted to his friend, pushing them both out of the dimly lit tavern, into the warmth of the sun and the promise of freedom.