Summer in the city

It's 4:00 a.m. and so incredibly hot. You know, that sticky kind of heat that not even the best fan can break up. She's been moving from her bedroom to the living to the bedroom and back again, a short respite in a cool shower, and then snap to a few hours later. It's time to start the day. So says the sun.

It's 6:37 a.m. and already she's tired of this day. There are dishes in the sink, collecting quickly, gnats finding a home where they previously didn't exist. An empty bottle of Palmolive sits on the edge of her grubby sink. A grim scene if any parent were to walk in unexpectedly.

"Oh, Kimberly May, this is just--" and her mother would cut herself off, because she knew her dismay said more than any more words could. Ah, tone of voice. The careful decision to use her daughter's first and middle names. Disappointment, a feeling Kim knows well.

About a month earlier, it was probably 11:54 p.m. on a week night, Kim had called it quits with a guy she barely could say she was seeing casually. Or, put another way, if someone had given her a plus one to a wedding she would think about inviting this guy, but wouldn't because in the end the relationship had no legs to stand on. She tried not to be so cynical at the start of it, but that's hard, so with each passing day her defeatism grew into an inevitability, well, a defeat.

So, now it's noon on a Saturday. The week ended as quickly as it began. Thankfully so. She woke up late, having been out til the wee hours working the night before. She woke up alone, sticky in the summer heat. There's no room for anyone in this home, void of an air-conditioner, anyway. Sweat. Solo. Summer.

"Summer in the city, I'm so lonely lonely lonely I've been hallucinating you, babe, at the backs of other women And I tap on their shoulder and they turn around smiling But there's no recognition in their eyes " -Regina Spektor, Summer in the City