Bodies with mass inevitably attract, at least according to Isaac Newton. But when bodies, objects, masses – whatever you want to call them – do come together they’re usually not sticky, with a viscous substance between them that clings fast and feels increasingly disgusting.
But then there’s nothing usual about the hottest day of summer, which is why we call it the ‘hottest day’. It isn’t just your run-of-the-mill hot day, it isn’t pleasantly warm, nice and bright, or slightly clammy. It’s the sort of day when a moment’s exposure seems to blister the skin and set your brow running, when you glimpse up at the sun and with fear and loathing exclaim ‘Woah! Godforsaken sun! I never knew just how hot you were’, before scampering for the shade and an ice-cold beverage.
Within hours, sometimes within minutes, the day we have longed for all year seems rather a curse than a blessing. We wish it were spring, autumn, or winter, anything but summer. Our muscles might feel loose and supple, but our movements become sluggish, and we seek the chaise longue, the dark grass under trees, or the tender caress of an open refrigerator.
One man expressed his dismay at the adhesive world he awoke to, as if cut and pasted, on the hottest day of summer. He took the better part of the bedsheets with him as he clambered out of bed, visiting the bathroom for the first of many showers. When he poured out his cereal, the milk seemed all mealy, when he sat on the sofa his thighs stuck to the leather, pulling on and off T-shirts felt like more of a bother, and long after ice cream he found clinging pieces of wafer.
He dreamed of America, the land of slush and air conditioner, wandered outside but preferred the interior, and the sauce that he made as he prepared for his dinner was flavoured with sweat as his open mouth quivered. That was a mistake, let the others suffer: he should have ordered takeaway, he thought, as he lay back and sipped margarita.
