The fan oscillated slowly, as if in no hurry to cool the room. The humidity was so thick it could have been cut with a knife. I sat with a quickly warming beer trying to decide how best to beat the heat. I slowly glanced around the room, my head seeming to imitate the fan as I scanned the room for some form of relief. The aircon was out, it broke yesterday, and if I kept the fridge door open I fear it might go the same way. I found nothing in my scans that could bring relief. I briefly considered fucking the woman in the bedroom again, but we tried that this morning, hoping the exercise would cause us to be cooler at the end, but it didn’t work at all. Not the worst experiment to try, though. I doubt she’d be down now, she was restlessly napping trying to pass the heat of the day unconscious.
This house was designed to be naturally cool. I specifically talked about that with the architect. We had this trendy fucker built. I personally went over the details with the designers. The idea was the airy spaces and high ceilings would disperse the heat and allow natural wind to pass through. Sweet gems of lies about lower aircon costs and more natural light were whispered like sweet nothings in my ears. It was a tropical house for a tropical city, or so I was told. Turns out that a heatwave was too much, or the talent of the architect was too little. The glass of the house was positioned just wrong and turned this mother fucker into a solar oven. Even on cool days it boils, and on one of the hottest days in the last 10 years it’s cooking lunch without the aid of the stove. And of course the air conditioner blew out, it was working overtime all the time to keep this industrial chic bitch even moderately cool.
I heard her rustle in the next room and walk towards the kitchen. I’m glad she didn’t blame me for the solar oven we built to raise a family in. I was in charge of the design, and she has thankfully never blamed me for what is probably my fault. I heard the faucet pour water into a glass. She walked into the living room and looked at me. Her hair was forlorn and her clothes were wet with sweat.
“This sucks.” She said with resignation and precision.
“For sure.”
“Fuck that architect man.”
“For sure.”
“Let’s move when the heatwave breaks. I know this place looks good and it was supposed to be our dream house, but na.”
“Well it was a type of dream, just not the good kind.”
She laughed, “Move into your nightmare house today.”
“We could market it as a hell house.”
“Na, that would be cooler than this bitch is.”
“It might be a cold day in hell when we find a person to buy our rather hip solar oven.”
“Na, we’ll buy a new aircon, crank it, and tell them it’s naturally cooled.”
“I think I heard that line before.”
“Yep, and it will be exactly as true as before.”
I laughed and she sat down next to me in front of the fan. We sweated together in the tropical heat.
