Blinded by the Light: Drabbles

Drabble Fourteen: Heatwave

Brian had never been a big fan of warm weather, but finding himself trying to fall asleep after failing to do so for hours in a stuffy bedroom on one of those hot and dense end of July nights, were those moments when he really realised just how much he hated heat. It was as if every year during the winter, he forgot just how much he couldn't stand the high temperatures that typically accompanied the summer season, only to discover his dislike for warm weather over and over when June showed up on the calendar to introduce itself and its unbearable temperatures. And the moment he was right in the middle of one of those heatwaves, like right now, Brian felt like he could curse the sun for even existing. The astrophysicist voice in his head popped up to remind him that human life would be impossible without the help of UV light and the warmth the sun radiated, but Brian was positive that if it had been possible, he would crumble the sun with his bare hands, regardless of the consequences for planet Earth and its inhabitants.

Brian turned around for what had to be the fiftieth time of that night, weakly lifting up his head to look at the alarm clock. It was almost one AM, and still it seemed to not be completely dark outside. Brian didn't know if it really still was somewhat light outside or if he had been lying in bed staring into the unlit room for long enough to adjust his eyes to the darkness and be able to make out the shape of things around him, but whichever of the two it was, it annoyed him. Like everything about this freaking heatwave that had been going on for days in a row was starting to annoy him. Waking up all sweaty, the water being lukewarm whenever he turned on the tap, having to pluck his clothes off his sweat-slicked skin all day long, feeling the need to shower every two hours because the heat made his body feel sticky and made his sweaty curls cling to his neck and face, every piece of fabric feeling like it was made of woven treads of liquid heat...

The realisation of fabric being around him, made Brian kick the remainders of the thin sheets they had been using as blankets lately – now that actual blankets could probably cause a heatstroke – off the bed in a helpless attempt to cool himself down. He knew it was useless; he had not allowed them to come even close to his feet, let alone that he would actually lie down underneath them. It was more the need to kick something because he was feeling so frustrated with being tired but being unable to sleep in the stuffy bedroom, bathing in his own sweat while the ceiling fan buzzed endlessly as it spun around a thousand times without bringing as much as a cold breeze of air. He felt the tendency to get out of the bed that felt like it equalled the temperature of their stove in the winter, jump on top of it, and tear at the fan until the damned device would never spin again. Unfortunately, he know he was going to regret doing that to their rented house, and secondly, he did not want to disturb Roger. He had seemed to be on the brink of falling asleep last time he checked, but now that Brian turned around to look at him again, he saw that the drummer was staring at the ceiling with his eyes wide open, as if he had given up on trying to fall asleep. Brian did add a mental note to himself, though, that holding his eyes open did not necessarily mean Roger had given up on attempting to doze off; whether he had them open or closed, he could see nothing with them anyway. For half a second Brian wished he could swap with his boyfriend's condition so that he did not have to be annoyed by the semi-darkness in their room, but then immediately felt guilty afterwards, knowing that this one moment of wishing for complete darkness was incomparable to involuntarily being left without eyesight for the rest of one's life.

To get his mind off the matter, Brian resumed his list of things that annoyed him about the heat. Next to the lukewarm water and his sticky curls hanging in his face all the time, there was also the excess of laundry because he felt the need to change out of his sweaty clothes thrice a day, the pace with which he ran out of sunscreen because his skin colour was equal to that of a ghost, never being in the mood for dinner because the last thing he wanted was to eat anything above the temperature of refrigerated food in this heat...