Midsummer
The July heat is merciless: even at nine in the evening the air is heavy, cloying, curling my hair into humid wisps at the back of my neck. But the cicadas are strumming, and if I sit especially still, I can feel the ghost of a cooler breeze on my skin, brushing by me like an attractive stranger, gone too soon for me to get a good look. The fireflies flirt with me, flitting slowly by, drawing closer, then falling back, suspended in midair, beating tiny wings and glowing green every so often. The stillness is filtering into my brain as I take a sip of the wine (red, but chilled, from the fridge, because summer!), and a drop of condensation falls from the glass onto my thigh, then slides further down. The mosquitoes are already here, too; I slap at one biting into my leg, and the tiny body falls away, leaving behind a reddish smudge and an itch begging to be scratched. The distant hum of traffic on the highway resonates with the sound of insects in the air as I sit and watch the night fall. The sky is still light, but the shadows under the trees darken, and the fireflies become brighter, more visible. As I listen to the insects more closely, their chirping seems to rise, grow, and fill the stillness. I know these sounds are tiny limbs moving, but not a leaf stirs on the trees, making the invisible music even stranger. The smell of night-blooming flowers filters through the heat and envelops me, too sweet, too heady, too good to stand. Drunk on the perfume, my body warm from the wine and the day's residual heat, having made the requisite blood sacrifice to the mosquitoes, I rise and go back inside, away from the cicadas and the fireflies, into the coolness of the ceiling fan and the tiled floors of the house. The heat stays with me for a while, and the tiny green lights flash before my eyes as I fall asleep that night.