and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

And it was like this all the time, the sounds, the noises in the night, the dark heavy air just laying there as if it owned everything. All of it, one giant multi-tentacled beast, wanting to touch everything, be on top of everything. Smothering, acrid with the stink of garbage, alcohol, cigarette smoke, and stale food.

This is summer in the city.

Paper flyers, parking tickets, and plastic bags floating around at knee-level, circling the sidewalks like flocks of vultures. Exhaust fumes wandering in clumps of black air, searching for surfaces to spread out onto. High pitched metal-against-metal screeching, the slamming of doors, loud honking sounds, and the squeal of tires spinning on pavement.

This is summer in the city.

The warmth, over-bearing in it's expansiveness, it's ubiquitousness, it's omnipresence in everything, everywhere, making even the air conditioned offices feel not right - uncomfortable like ice cubes on the neck in a hottub. Odd and illicit, cornering you on all sides touching you in places your parents said were private, heat boiled up from out of thin air.

This is summer in the city.

And eventually, everything has come to accept it. The fall of a great kingdom of ice, finally at it's last end giving everything up; save yourselves! - the end is nigh. Only time, now, slow in it's steadyness, will upturn the knocked-over tables and wipe up the spilled milk, sweep the dust out the door and quietly, without expectation, bring the hot down to it's knees, choking it out with nothing but mind-over-matter, no physical fight, no chest-to-chest stare downs.

This is summer in the city.

Without thinking it at all, the noises will seem more distant, the fingers of warmth more pale and sickly. Leaves will replace the flyers and grocery bags mingling about in the alleys and back streets, spinning about in little whirlwinds of abstract dance. You will stop - door open, hand against the screen with your fingers touching the tiny metal criss-cross-criss-cross - and for two seconds it will seem reasonable, almost silly to even worry about.. but then your senses will sink in and take root; you'll turn back for a sweater, long pants maybe, or a light jacket. Only then, when things die, do we truly appreciate things.

This is summer in the city.

We'll sit there, together, drinking coffee in paper cups, legs up on the seat with arms curled around ourselves. Not sure if the cold is physical or there inside our heads like the despair of ineffectualness. It will be vague but inside, near the back, the thoughts will form as they do sitting at the bedside of a dying grandparent; conflicting thoughts, questions, justifications - Everything must die? All things, good and bad, come to an end. This is okay, it is renewal.

This is summer in the city.