

When he felt the sun hit his body he woke up.  Windows were always left open when he slept in the summer.  A hot breeze shone through and imparted its warmth, like a wolf's hungry breath on a dead carcass.  Heat so thick you could almost see it in the air.  Clenching the sheets between sweating fists, his eyes cracked open, staring at the peeling ceiling above.  Paint bubbled like boils on a leper's back.  With parched mouth wide open, he panted steaming breaths into the heavy air.

When the sweat beneath his back became too wet for him to bear he set his back upright.  He could feel the night's sweat slowly crawl down his back like spiders seeking out their prey.  Like maimed mice trying to claw their way back to their families.  Pooling on the sheet beneath him, his sweat released its acrid stench into the room.  Stagnantly motionless was the overhead fan.  It had broken weeks earlier.  Succumbed to its inevitable death in the heat. 

When his feet touched down to the concrete floor, at least his heels felt some release from the overwhelming warming sensation.  

He found himself standing in the shower, letting the cool beads of water attack his face with their barrage of cold.  When the droplets had reached his feet, they were already warm to touch.  Like snow melting before hitting the ground.  Like a ball halted by the breeze, all its potency diminished.  His routine actions floated in front of his consciousness barely making an imprint.  Like an insect skittering across the water never leaving a trace.  

When the scenery shifted from the mustiness of his home to fluorescence, sterility, and white he knew he had arrived at his office.  His chair softly chirped, still bouncing from his initial collapse.  Oscillating like the door in an old saloon.  His gaze ambled around the cubicle, lazily rolling from the empty drawers to the cluttered desktop to the buzzing screen in front of him to the blue carpet beneath his feet.  He felt his shirt clinging stubbornly to his back and he knew that his clothes were already embarrassingly wet.  There was nothing he could do about it now.

He threw his hand upon the mouse.  He slid it around its cage, each careless motion causing the pointer on screen to dart nervously about as if it were a forgotten pet ferret starved for attention.  He could hear the groans of coworkers recently arrived, still waking up just as he was.  Their chairs hissing weakly as they were sat upon, sighs of complete resignation.  

When he inhaled he could feel a dull pain around his neck.  He needed a looser shirt, he thought to himself.  He mid-neck was red with years of sweaty chaffing of collars.  Skin raw like it was dragged helplessly across a wrestling mat.  He took another deep breath as best he could.  

I just have to push through.
Keep on pushing.

