Weather Report

By Paul Ford

Cognition has broken down. There is nothing to describe except warm pressure.

You couldn't see the concrete because the sidewalk was made entirely of sun. I was not eating, but interacting with - loving, feeling - a bright green, quickly melting all-natural lime popsicle. I needed this lime pop. The things I have needed in my life are:

1. A liberal education
2. Intelligent girlfriends
3. The love and approval of others
4. This lime pop

I wanted to get the lime pop home and up to my room, then undress it from its plastic foil wrapper and put it in my mouth. I know that seems obviously metaphoric but it is not. The relationship with the lime pop is not one of consumption and control but of internalization. I want to be the lime pop, to feel what it feels, its arctic coolness, not to subsume and control the lime pop. Were there a way to experience the lime pop without destroying it, I would do that, and I would seek to preserve its green essence.

There was no way, and I couldn't wait. A few steps from my building I pulled it from the paper bag and shredded the wrapper, reveling in the sudden presence. I was half-finished when I arrived at my front door. I was no more dignified than a dog. My teeth rang out in my skull, struck like little bells by the popsicle's cold and sweetness.

The neighborhood peoples were stoop-sitting. I have no stoop. I wish I did. I'd sit out and read and bake my skin until it turned the color of a sunset. I saw an alleycat explode. It was orange, and mewling, then poof. My air conditioner blows hot. It will end, yes.

See also: Heat Effect.