The heat arrives, layer after layer. Search out the few feet of shade left. By 9 o'clock a breaking point has been reached; the sweeper's arms move like a mechanical pendulum. The light holds everything in perfect stillness.
Everything at this time of the year is run down, panting for breath, or some kind of relief from the fierceness of the days. There are smudged footprints on the wall and loose soil scattered on the floor. Doors manage to slimly hang on to their hinges. Mud is splattered on the side of the car. The earth is baked and won't budge an inch. A carton of milk lies abandoned next to a pile of pebbles. When you kick it it moves with a thud, some of its contents spilling on to the grass. Inside, a red toy light gets lost and found as the alternating light and shade from a curtain filters shards of light onto the floor. Our own lives flickering into and out of visibility in an ebb and flow that is as old as time itself.
The house has been turned upside down and inside out. Nothing is worth saving. A postcard, a sad and grey Japanese frog in watercolour, lies on the floor, creased, out of sorts. A model tram from San Francisco, unwatched dvds, unread books- their pages like dry hands.
The term has ended. I don't want to hear about it or talk about it. No looking back. Put on your Puritan hat and recall your sober heart. Love is north by north-west.
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