False Start

The sky was harsh and bright blue, nearly white at that hour. I stopped to look at the sky and imagine the relief of a shadow from a cloud or bird passing overhead. Light beat down on me with its full weight, sinking between each cotton fiber and bathing me in heat. Any movement could make my skin touch the heat from my heavy clothing, singeing and clinging. There was no relief from it. There was no life no heaven or respite. I could not possibly be the broad sweeping ocean that I intended myself to be. I was lost as a gull, drowned eight miles off the coast. That gull, at least, had the pleasure of bathing in a cool sea of salt and life. Here there was concrete and dampness only from the salt within. The salt of life creeping out from the wringing of the heat.